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June 2009

The Right Solution

The BC Solutions Group develop bespoke applications for clients who need more than BC out of the box.

We’re regularly approached by clients with specific and sometimes completely unexpected requirements. For example, Thames Water needed a system to improve their tendering process, The Musgrave Group wanted a store refurbishment cost management system. Before them, Nationwide Building Society required first, an intranet system then later, their own store refurbishment and programme management application. And these are just a few of the highlights from the CV of the Solutions Team.

This month we take a closer look at some of the exciting applications developed by the Solutions Group.

MAPD
Monsoon Accessorize required a system to provide a single point of reference for all its property information. The BC Solutions Team created the Monsoon Accessorize Property Database (MAPD) to hold information including detailed information such as addresses, trading status, landlords, rent schedules, floor spaces of the retail departments, size of non-retail areas, utility information, store development programmes and suppliers.

The MAPD solution includes a comprehensive array of reports, enabling a holistic view of the store network. Valuable property information such as the overall status of the store development schedule, total rental expenditure and store nearing opening dates are easily available.

E-Tendering Management System
With the water industries next 5-year asset management programme due to commence in 2010, Thames Water recognised the need to improve their tendering processes. In order to meet Thames Water’s specific needs, BC created an e-tendering solution leveraging the tried and tested functionality built into the core BC system. Thames Water estimate a 16% reduction in document assembly time, equating to five days, and approximately 20% on contract assembly time, leaving bidders with almost five extra days to work on submissions.

With the e-tendering solution each supplier’s tender documentation is uploaded into a secure folder. At a later pre-agreed date, Thames Water ‘closes the gate’ on the documents, stopping further amendments. The folder is then ‘weighed’ to estimate its size and completeness before the tender is accepted.

WideXchange
WideXchange enables the Property Services Department at Nationwide Building Society to hold all project information associated to its store fit-out projects in one place. The scope of the system extends to include design management, performance and risk management, and improved programme management.

After the implementation, Steve Head, Electronic Services Manager at Nationwide, commented “We now have an internal and external team who could previously only have coped with relatively low numbers of projects - now we estimate that we could ramp up our activity by 600-700% with no reduction of quality or loss of control”

StoreDevelop
In order to increase the number of store refurbishments each year, utilise more of the teams' skills, and maximise buying power, the Musgrave Group (Ireland’s largest grocery distributor) recognised their need for better cost tracking and tender management.

BC’s Solution Team created an application to manage the tendering of items to fit-out Musgrave’s stores. Project information can be reviewed on an item-by-item basis, enabling purchase price comparisons. Estimates for installation and ongoing maintenance costs are also compared to provide an overview of best value for each store.

BC Extras
Over the years the BC Solutions Team has created an assortment of smaller developments that go a long way to enhancing the functionality of BC’s core system. Soon to be known collectively as BC Extras, these apps include: a news database, a news ticker, a photo carousel, quick links to favourite files, document templates with fields for metadata, auto-metadata tagging on imports and a contacts database to name a few.

Interface Branding
Changing the branding and colour scheme to reflect your corporate or project guidelines is one of the quickest ways to improve user acceptance and therefore usage of a collaboration system. The Solutions Team can readily brand the interface of your implementation to match your company’s colours, include your logos and to display images specific to your projects.

Watch this space
Additions to the BC Extras range continue; development is already underway for a mobile phone interface to access files and information stored on implementations of BC’s core system. Meanwhile, the team is already working on a number of other bespoke developments are underway: programme reporting; project control; lessons learnt database, a content management system (CMS) for intranets… These too, may well find themselves on our list of available BC Modules for deployment to other clients’ systems.

If you have an application that needs developing, why not get in touch for an initial feasibility assessment. Your requirements would be delivered through the BC platform and could benefit from the underlying features that BC offers out of the box.

Call or email Paul Houghton (Head of The Solutions Group) on +44 (0)118 902 8500.