Government IT project overrun cost millions

Government plans to introduce shared services for human resources, payroll and finance could cost the Department for Transport (DfT) £81m by March 2015 - instead of the £57m saving that was originally intended.

The figures were revealed in a scathing report by public sector spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO), which slammed government efforts to introduce shared services.

So far, parts of the DfT to have adopted a shared service approach are the Driving Standards Agency, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the central Department, with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency coming on board later this year.

The NAO report points to inadequate contract management and poor initial implementation within the department and says the DfT was over optimistic in setting its timetable and goals for the programme with its main IT supplier IBM.

The completion date for setting up shared services for a number of processes was originally set for last month at a cost of £55m to achieve savings of £112m.

But the inability to agree on a common set of business processes, a breakdown in supplier relations and inadequate testing led to what the NAO called “an unstable” IT system being implemented.

As a result the programme is set to go £65m over budget and projected savings have been slashed by nearly two-thirds.

The NAO said the department is making efforts to recoup savings in this area and could potentially increase gross savings up to £84.4m, less any additional cost in implementing new systems.

In a statement NAO head Tim Burr said “It is disappointing to see a programme which aimed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a department leaving it, on current projections, some £80m worse off. Departments need to be realistic about the challenges of implementing shared services and to manage suppliers effectively. Over the past year the department has made efforts to improve the performance of the Shared Services Programme and it cannot afford to fail.”

Derrick Cameron from IT firm Eximium said “Even given the size of this project it is remarkable to say the least that such an overspend can be achieved.  We are used to reading about projects going over budget, but this represents an overspend of about £1 for every man, woman and child in the country. It’s a good example of how important it is to be as clear as possible about objectives, timescales and costs before starting a project and flagging up any deviations as early as possible to errors can be quickly adjusted.”

Customers help themselves to customer care

It appears that only half of all call centre transactions are now handled by people.  This is because the use of automated self-service tools in call centres has surged over the past decade, to the point that only 50 per cent of callers actually talk to real people.

In 1997, 90 per cent of contact centre calls were handled by an operator but today that figure has fallen by almost half. Interactive Voice Response and web-based systems now respectively account for 15.5 per cent and 13.7 per cent of all transactions. Other transactions use part computer / part person systems such as the VCII offered by Voice Connect www.voiceconnect.co.uk installed at the Houses of Parliament for example. 

Derrick Cameron from IT firm Eximium comments “Whilst it can be very temping to save money through automation, it is important to recognize that the cost of a lost customer can be very high to your business when things go wrong.  Certain processes can be simplified and even improved through automation, but it’s important to keep the human element in the equation when things don’t work out.  Where automated processes are introduced, it is important to carefully think through just what is going on in the mind of the customer to ensure that a proper service is being provided – and not just the inability to complain due to lack of opportunity.”  

It now takes and average 39 seconds for centres to respond to a call, compared with 23 second in 1997. And the time taken to respond to messages left by customers has almost doubled from 11 to 20 hours.

A deal is struck for expansion onto the Butterfield Business & Technology Park

Over recent weeks, we’ve been finalising plans for expansion and I’m pleased to say negotiations have now been completed for us to take some space at the prestigious Butterfield Business and Technology Park in Luton.  We’ve decided to establish a presence at the new Basepoint Business & Innovation Centre that was built on the park last year.  We’ll be taking a 1200sqft space at the centre, hopefully at the start of September.

Butterfield is just off the A505 and within easy reach of the M1, Luton Airport and the town centre, and is an 85 acre site.  The Business & Innovation Centre cost £18.5 million and was funded by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) to the tune of £14 million. The remaining £4.5 million was provided by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) and the Government Office for the East of England (GO-East).

Great attention has been paid towards providing an environmentally friendly building and we have been very impressed by the green solutions to needs such as heating and air conditioning.  It’s also a terrific looking building, with good use made of natural materials and there is plenty of glass and open space.  The whole atmosphere is professional but also fresh and tranquil.  There is even a pond!

We’re very excited about our new space and we’re looking forward to sampling the new working environment at the centre.  There’s a lot to organise first, though!

IT shares in £200m training cash allocation

The government has recognized the importance of the IT sector by announcing a big new grant.  It is believed that the sector will share in a grant of £200m to be invested in new training facilities.

The investment, to be made over the next three years, is part of a wider move, signalled over the weekend by John Denham, secretary of state for innovation, universities and skills, that the government will focus attention on developing skills in a number of strategic sectors.

Official Government research shows that UK businesses will need an extra 160,000 extra IT staff by 2014. This is in addition to the 190,000 IT professionals identified by the report, Working Futures 2004-2014, needed to replace those currently working in IT, who will retire or otherwise leave the industry over the next seven years.

The money will come from existing further education budgets rather than additional funding. IT’s slice of the pie has yet to be announced. Denham is to arrange meetings next month with the industry-led sector skills councils, including E-Skills UK, to identify how the money should be invested.

Derrick Cameron, MD of IT firm Eximium which offers IT training as well as other IT services comments “Naturally, I’m delighted that the importance of investing in the future of IT is being recognized.  The sector is clearly important and will become even more important in the future.  There will be profound implications for the economy if training for the IT sector does not match its needs. Every part of the economy depends on the expertise of the UK’s IT professionals, and these plans to allocate more funds to help address the sector’s priority skills needs will be greatly welcomed by employers”.

The Hertfordshire Business Independent - Networking Event

I’m delighted to say that I’ve been asked by one of the magazines that have previously published my articles, The Hertfordshire Business Independent, to speak at their forthcoming Networking Event on Thursday 26th June.  I’ve been given a 20 minute slot to entertain the 50 or so business people present so I’m working on that now!

If anyone is interested in attending this event, the details are listed below.  You can either drop me a line or contact them directly.  I’d be pleased to see you there.

Latest news on our ISO 9001 accreditation

Over the last year, we’ve all been working hard to implement ISO 9001 into the business.  I can’t say it’s been easy!  It was a daunting task at the beginning, but it’s been a real experience, and it’s helped us and our business in so many ways.  The great thing is that ISO 9001 is a framework of best business practice principles that you adapt to your own business and your way of working, making the quality management system your own.  You can buy off the shelf systems, but they’re an attempt to make something generic out of something that should be very specific, and closely linked into your business, so we didn’t go down that route.  I’m glad we made that decision because it really feels as though we’ve invested our time and money well, and now we have something that we can really use and truly belongs to us all.

I must say that BSI have been fantastic.  I attended their 2-day ‘Implementing ISO 9001′ training course last year, and it really explained what to do, the problems to watch out for, and answered most of my questions about how the approach applied to our business. I don’t think we would have created such a personalised and useful quality management system, as well as we have, if I hadn’t been on the course.  Equally, Steve Mason, our BSI Client Manager, has been instrumental in guiding me down a path to create a robust system without over complicating anything.

Quality is such an important part of what we do that we aren’t treating our quality management system as a separate entity at all, it’s just our business management approach; a completely integral part of how we run our business.  Fortunately for us, our business principles were a close fit with ISO 9001 already, so the idea of things like monitoring and measuring quality, having a customer focused approach, and taking corrective actions when things go wrong, weren’t new to us.  For the most part, we just needed to adapt our procedures and formalise our approach in certain areas, to fit with the standards. There’s no question in our minds now though - we are a better business as a result.

We’ve implemented our quality management system into our procedures now and I’m delighted to say it’s working well.  It isn’t perfect yet, but a key lesson ISO 9001 teaches you is that it’s okay to make mistakes, as that’s all part of the process of continual improvement.  What’s important is showing that you have a mechanism to help you learn from those mistakes, and putting a process in place to stop the same mistake from happening again.

Our initial assessments with BSI have gone well - we’re now waiting for the final assessment at the beginning of July.  At the moment though, it’s looking good for us to get that coveted kitemark!

HMRC fires staff for reading personal data

An MP has revealed that over 600 staff at HM Revenue and Customs have been disciplined for reading tax payers’ personal histories. Treasury Financial Secretary Jane Kennedy said that 238 people were disciplined in 2005, 180 in 2006 and 192 in 2007.

While some employees received a reprimand, the MP revealed that a large number had been fired.

Kennedy said that HMRC has a “strict policy forbidding staff to access customer records unless they have a legitimate business need.

“Breaches of this policy are taken seriously and will result in the commencement of disciplinary proceedings,” she said. “Each case is treated on its merits but, in many cases, the disciplinary penalty for breach is dismissal.”

The cases highlight continuing concerns about the department’s competence in handling data on UK citizens.

“The data loss that occurred last year at the treasury was the start of a string of stories concerning the mishandling of Government data. What for years was a trusted area is now under the spotlight, where revelations such as this will undoubtedly raise eyebrows,” comments Derrick Cameron, from IT firm Eximium.

“Businesses must deploy an information security solution, which hides sensitive data unless the request is genuine, if they are ever to completely overcome human curiosity and error,” adds Cameron.

Business owners increasingly clinching deals on the move

Nearly half of UK SME bosses have won business by being able to respond to prospects while on the move, according to a survey by Research In Motion.  The research also suggests that the majority of SME decision makers are out of the office for significant periods at least twice a week.

The need to juggle business requirements and communications on the move is therefore of vital importance. Two thirds of respondents said that ‘regular communication’ and ‘reacting quickly to queries’ are the two most critical aspects in successful relationships with customers.

However, despite 65 per cent of SMEs stating that keeping in touch with business stakeholders is ‘very important’ or ‘important’, nearly a third still use letters as the preferred method of communication.

“It is commonplace for SME owners to spend large amounts of time out of the office, and multitasking is often essential to keep their business moving,” said Derrick Cameron, MD of Eximium.

“However, customers and prospects expect a certain level of service and speed of contact regardless of whether they are in the office or not. It is becoming ever more important to use reliable mobile solutions.  They are essential to the success of SMEs in the UK and across Europe, so adopting the right tools and procedures from the beginning is key to long term success.”

The proportion of SME bosses who have clinched a deal while out and about is around 62 per cent across Europe, rising to 86 per cent in Spain.

Eximium joins Luton Business For Breakfast® group

Business IT specialists Eximium Ltd announced today that they have joined the Luton Business For Breakfast® group. The club meets at the Menzies Strathmore Hotel in the Arndale centre between 6:45am and 8:30am every other Tuesday, to share best business practise and exchange quality business referrals.

Derrick Cameron, MD of Eximium said “We are delighted to be working with Ryan and the other members of this group to grow our business, and to help them grow theirs. We’ve already had a number of valuable opportunities come from the group and it’s great to be part of a club with such friendly and like-minded business people.

“This group fits well with our marketing strategy. We don’t employ salespeople, as they can turn people off. Our services and our approach sell themselves, and recommendations and referrals are the most powerful way for us to spread the word about what we do. I can recommend this group to anyone looking to do business in the area, who wants to have an opportunity to meet and nurture new contacts and benefit from a fun, friendly and professional approach to business breakfast networking.”

The group is run by Ryan Tobias. Ryan said “I’m delighted to have Eximium on board. They are exactly the type of forward-thinking, growing company that we’re looking to have as members. Derrick has a great approach to the meetings and is always keen to help other members to grow their business, which is to everyone’s benefit.”

Ryan can be contacted at ryan@bforb.co.uk.

Happy birthday to an unwelcome guest - 30 years since the first junk e-mail was sent

Security researchers from across the UK are giving a tongue-in-cheek salute to the 30th anniversary of the first spam message. Gary Theurk is apparently the person who gave birth to the first junk e-mail.  At the time, he was an employee at the Digital Equipment Company and sent a message on Arpanet to hundreds of fellow users on 1 May 1978.

The message advertised the latest DEC computer systems, and received a less than enthusiastic reaction from fellow users. Arpanet has since evolved into the modern day internet, and DEC was purchased by Compaq and later HP.

 So, 30 years on, why does spam still exist?  Security firm Sophos noted recently that some 10 per cent of respondents to a recent survey admitted to purchasing spammed products.

“The truth is that, much as we all say we hate spam, if an e-mail for a product or service arrives that we are interested in, we buy it.  If users didn’t buy the goods, spam would soon dry up.  The spammers wouldn’t make any money and their activities would stop,” said Derrick Cameron, MD of Eximium.

“What amuses me about most of the spam I receive,” adds Derrick, “is that I have no idea what it is meant to be selling me!  I’ve always been at a loss to understand how or why this type of spam seems to be growing.

“What started out as a single message 30 years ago has grown into a global problem that clogs inboxes the world over and makes returning from holiday that little bit more bothersome,” adds Derrick.

Businesses could be forced to fund new e-crime unit

The Home Office is currently thinking about whether business will be expected to fund a new e-crime unit that is under consideration by the Home Office. Not surprisingly, the private sector has said that the core funding for such a police unit to combat e-crime must come from the government.

The proposal stems from a suggestion that the Policing Central E-crime Unit, as proposed by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and the Metropolitan Police Service, would be jointly funded by the Home Office, ACPO and businesses.

Derrick Cameron of Eximium comments, “It’s pretty obvious that e-crime is a problem for everyone in society and affects businesses as well as consumers. Whilst it is in the interests of companies who sell online that it is properly policed, it seems unreasonable that they should be expected to pick up the tab. The funds should come from general taxation.”

Derrick goes on to add, “As an economy, we should be encouraging business owners to do more online not asking them to pay more if they want to trade on the web.”

The unit would be aimed at stopping hackers who can often be found tapping into the profits of ever more businesses. Although for many it is ‘something fun’ to pass the time, it is taking its toll on company profits. In fact, many hackers have spent time creating a business model that is nearly as sophisticated as that of legal software providers.

“Cyber crime is no longer something that affects only big businesses — it affects small businesses just as much; in fact, there are few aspects of the economy not affected by it. Let’s hope the e-crime unit is up to the significant task ahead of it,” adds Cameron.

Businesses leave valuable data untouched

Almost every business already has valuable information about its customers at its disposal. With recent technological advances in printing making personalised direct mail campaigns affordable, there has never been a better time to apply the data mining techniques used by direct marketers to predict customer behavior.

Business to business or b-to-b marketing is one of the more challenging areas. B-to-b marketers have been slower to adopt database marketing best practices. They tend not to have the in-house expertise to leverage the historical information from their customers, which might help segment their customer base and make the most use of customer data.

Working with a combination of in-house transactional data as well as overlay business “firmographic” information, companies can target their current customers and also understand where to find new clients that resemble their best customers. Studies show that an existing customer is 7 times more likely to buy from you as a stranger.

Many companies don’t track the amount of money their customers spend, making a ‘lifetime value’ figure for the average customer impossible to price. This makes it very difficult to accurately gauge how much to spend on marketing. That process can be as simple as tracking total sales or as complex as completely analysing their transactional history and corresponding profitability. Most business owners tend to think of a customer based on the current transaction; they tend to be more transaction- than customer-focused, not looking at the bigger lifetime picture.

Derrick Cameron from Eximium comments, “What was once very difficult to track and monitor can now be simplified through the intelligent use of IT. Once the systems are in place, monitoring this type of essential information becomes quite straightforward.”

Here are Derrick’s three key tips for getting more out of your existing customer data:

1) Be clear what you want. Data mining techniques are useless if you don’t know what you want to achieve. You don’t want to data mine for its own sake. You want to make sure that the information you retrieve can be applied to winning or converting more clients or up selling to existing clients. Focus your data mining on areas where you are producing results that can be implemented into tactical initiatives. Use the information to achieve your marketing objectives. It’s all about planning and preparation.

2) How current and reliable is your customer data? Perhaps it’s time to conduct a data audit. Find out how accurate it is and assess the information based on its origins. Did the information come from the customer directly, during the point of sale, or from a third-party source? Look to your marketing objectives to determine what information is required. Track all transactional history back to the customer mapping. A common issue is the use of different versions of a company name in your database. One day the order might be placed using ‘Ideal Marketing’ as the customer name. The next time, you might use ‘The Ideal Marketing Company’ or even an acronym such as ‘IMC’. You need to make sure those purchases are being linked to that same customer to ensure the accuracy of your analysis.

3) Keep it clean. It’s worth doing a final manual check to spot potential errors, undefined fields or duplication. The follow through from the data audit is to make sure you capture all the information you can on a customer, and to make sure you can match those transactions.

CRM finally seems to have come of age

There is no doubt that, after being hailed as the ultimate in 21st century business tools, with a rapid return on investment, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) failed to live up to its promises, and sales of the technology lost pace. Now this formerly much-hyped technology is finally coming of age.

CRM software is simplifying many business processes and becoming more user-friendly. The result being CRM is actually starting to live up to its early promise.

Derrick Cameron of IT firm Eximium comments, “In its early days, the first and second generation CRM technology was supposed to propel businesses into a new customer centered mindset. In truth, the technology wasn’t where it should have been. It was too complex and difficult to use effectively. Instead of making the lives of sales people and customer service personnel easier and their jobs more efficient, it tended to make processes and tasks harder and less efficient.

“The result was that early adopters found few real benefits. In effect, CRM became regarded as good in theory with few practical business applications. The expense, effort and time required in implementing a CRM solution and to train people, rarely worked out for anyone,” adds Derrick.

But the signs are that 2008 will be a different story. “Interest in CRM is picking up again because users are coming to realise that what they had in place was over-complicated. There is no need to have-it-all and do-it-all to benefit from CRM,” Derrick adds.

Derrick’s main three ‘must have’ points to remember about CRM are:

1. Incident Management - know when and what complaints customers have logged with your company.

2. Sales Management - know what a customer has bought, enquired about and their credit record.

3. Market Segmentation - know what location and sector the customer operates in and the types of products other people in that sector have previously bought.

CRM products have matured to the point where users can quickly and easily make use of the functionality of the CRM application that best suits their needs. “Get these 3 processes right and the CRM package is likely to quickly pay for itself,” adds Derrick.

Britain tops poll for social networking sites 

It seems that the UK has topped the poll for at least one area in Europe – we are the keenest users of social networking in Europe, spending more time on them than anyone else across the continent.

In fact, 4 out of 10 adults in the UK regularly visited social networking sites during 2006 - more than anywhere else in Europe - according to OFCOM figures published this month.

Last year, users spent on average 5.3 hours per month on the sites and returned to them 23 times during each month. The UK led the way in a number of other areas, with slightly more than half of all UK households having a broadband connection by the end of 2006 - edging ahead of the US.

“These finding have an impact on 2 important areas for British businesses” says Derrick Cameron. “First of all, how much time is spent on these sites during work hours, and what are companies doing to monitor the situation. Secondly, what are companies doing to make the most of the popularity of these sites – in terms of a presence” he concludes.

Security vendors team up for better product testing

Specialist antivirus companies hope to devise a new methodology to enable users to compare their software. The group of leading IT security vendors have teamed up to devise a new standard for testing the effectiveness of their products.

Panda, AV-Test, Symantec, Kaspersky and F-Secure have formed the Anti-malware Testing Taskforce to help users of their software to better compare one system with another. The new methodology will be based on behavioural analysis, which replicates how a PC would deal with a threat.

At the moment, most comparisons of security software look at the signature databases – the information used to recognise viruses and other malware from their “signature” or identifiable characteristics. Behavioural analysis is believed to provide a better evaluation of the product’s effectiveness, according to Panda.

“This sounds like a good industry initiative which involves many respected names” comments Eximium’s Derrick Cameron. “Anything that either raises the profile of security or makes it easier for business to identify the best product for them has got to be welcomed” he adds.

The formation of the group follows several low profile meetings in Vienna Iceland and Seoul. The initial proposal for testing is due to be published by the end of this year. It is believed that other organisations have been invited to join, and a management team will be put together next month to design a testing template which allows a clear standard for testing.

Internet facing ‘meltdown’ by 2010

It has been claimed that the internet is running too much data on too little infrastructure. As a result there could be a dramatic slowdown by 2010 as the sheer scale of data exceeds the ability of the networks to cope.

The conclusions come from the Nemertes Research Group who have spent the past year analysing data flows over the internet and the core infrastructure that carries that information. Their conclusion is that that serious bottlenecks will occur in three to five years.

“Our findings indicate that core fibre and switching/routing resources will scale nicely to support virtually any conceivable user demand. However internet access infrastructure will cease to be adequate for supporting demand within the next three to five years.” Say the reports authors.

“I don’t think that the report’s authors are suggesting that the entire internet will collapse by 2010, but business owners are ever more reliant on broadband technology” comments Derrick Cameron MD of IT firm Eximium. “If access times and bandwidth constraints fall to the levels predicted it is bound to have an effect on innovation”

E-commerce will also be hit hard as access times will be erratic, and customers will be turned off and less able to make purchases. “As business owners and as consumers we have quickly become used to all the advantages the internet can offer. As a result it has become an integral part of most business models and the future of the economy. If the reports findings are accurate, then action needs to be taken sooner rather than later” adds Cameron.