So this is Christmas…….

……and what have you done, as the song says.  Well, here in Zipporah we have been reflecting on the year behind us as 2011 enters its twilight.  The answer to the question was “quite a lot actually”.  There have been a few bumps and scrapes and a lot of sweat and tears along the way but we emerge toward 2012 with a new impetus and the strongest team Zipporah has known.  I’m very proud of what Zipporah has achieved in 2011 and of the people who have worked to achieve it. I know it has had its share of trials and issues as we have pushed to realise our goal but in the last few months every difficulty has been overcome and we have emerged with a structure and organisation with all the growth potential to continue our success in the UK and fully build on early successes in other countries.  So to answer the question in more depth.  This is what we have done.

• Restructured the organisation to create a delivery and test team which will give the focus and hands on management to delivery, freeing up the directors
• Adjusted the directors client facing role to work strategically with our clients to work out requirements with them and the future direction whilst also being a point of clarity and escalation
• Increased the size of the technical team to deliver more work
• Completed work on several of the “neo” projects.  Introducing a new architecture for ease of use by the Zipporah team and a whole host of new features for our clients.
• Started roll-out of the neo modules for several clients
• Built and rolled out a new scheduling system, which is now already being utilised to start delivering capability for Powys County Council housing repair service.
• Rolled out our leisure management system across a multi-site authority
• Won and implemented a contract with the Republic of Ireland to deliver a cross country system
• Won a contract with a Sydney (Australia) based council to deliver a corporate solution for their online bookings.  Starting early 2012 and the first of many to come.
• Our sales team continued to increase our market share for online systems taking on a further 11 new clients.
• Emma Powell (our director) also managed to find time to give birth to a beautiful baby girl, Grace Elizabeth Powell.

These are just a few of the achievements of the year.  There are so many others both personal and as a team that I could make this blog very long indeed.  I’ve always said Zipporah is like a family and these achievements are only made possible by the way that our teams pull together.  So many of our team often go that extra mile for us and our clients and will always deliver when time comes.  We couldn’t achieve anything without this team work.

So as the year comes to a close I wish a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of our existing customers,  the customers we have yet to meet and to our team who have worked so hard to make 2011 a success.

How much will really change in 2012 for the UK public sector tech market?

Analyst firm TechMarketView has published its annual predictions for the UK public sector:

Government ICT strategy will languish as new CIO team boards

When the new CIO in place, the new Cabinet Office team will face an enormous task with a myriad risks threatening to hamper the implementation of the UK Government ICT strategy

A peak in renewals will result in radical contract restructuring

In 2012 we will see a peak in the number of contracts coming to their natural conclusion. Contracts will be radically restructured on renewal as UK Government moves from a vertically-siloed model to a horizontal model.

Megaplayers will retain lion’s share of major contract renewals

In times of austerity, and a propensity for low-risk options organisations are expected to stick to the suppliers they know  -  which will likely be industry leading suppliers.

Shared services will really take off

2012 and 2013 will be remembered in the UK public sector as the period when shared services really took off. Procurement and G cloud platforms will give departments and agencies more flexibility to buy from shared services centres in the future. The competition is expected to be intense.

SMEs will establish beachhead in government shared services

SMEs will have more opportunities as contracts are broken down, particularly where niche requirements are separated out and procured separately. The most successful suppliers will be those that focus on being best of breed in one or a handful of niche service lines that can be shared horizontally across multiple organisations.

G-Cloud will be patchy and slow-moving

New shared services organisations will give cloud adoption a push in the right direction. But shared services ventures aside, adoption of cloud services will be very slow to take off. The letting of the short 6-9 month G-Cloud framework (due early next year) indicates to us that most cloud adoption will be happening on low-risk smaller projects as UK Government dips its toe in the water to see what works and what doesn’t.

Mega players will further penetrate local government markets

The central government market is tough. Sectors like police (internal to external shift in spend), education (higher education in particular), and health (renewed interest due to localism agenda) are attracting increasing interest from the traditionally central government-focused suppliers. Many are investing in sector specific solutions and will be keen to see a return.

£75m boost for 'tech innovative' SMEs

Following the government's recent Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth which has allocated millions of pounds across technology fields, the UK government has also announced a £75 funding to technology and innovative SMEs in a bid to boost innovation and research in the UK, whilst attempting to spur companies to grow.

The announcements set out the government's plans to boost economic growth through investment in SMEs.

The allocated £75m for the Technology Strategy Board is hoped to ensure high tech innovative SMEs have access to the facilities and finance they need to develop and commercialise their products.The strategy, launched by Business Secretary Vince Cable and science minister David Willetts

Vince Cable, business secretary who launched the strategy, believes that by improving incentives companies would be encouraged to create life changing products.

David Willetts, science minister,  said the new innovation and research strategy was the next step in ensuring that the UK provided the best possible environment for entrepreneurs and innovators.

The Government Digital Service

The Government Digital Service (GDS) – government’s new site for online public services -  has been officially launched. The site, led by former Guardian digital man Mike Bracken, is set to transform the way citizens interact with government.

GDS has been establishing itself since early August with the support of the Cabinet Office, Downing Street and HM Treasury. It has already worked in a number of areas including the development of the government's e-petitions website.

The new home for online public services has gone live on the 8^th December and the government's executive director of digital -  Mike Bracken -  believes this will be a key factor in supporting a new generation of digital public services.

Mr. Maude, Cabinet Office minister, said the Government has set up GDS in order to offer world class digital products that meet people's needs and offer better value for taxpayers' money

He also added that GDS, as the centre for digital government in the UK, will transform the way people access government information by using digital technology to deliver services that put the user first and give them the smartest and most cost-effective service possible.

However, there are still concerns regarding the public sector’s slow pace towards digital implementation when compared to the private sector.  In response to these concerns, Bracken assured that GDS would adopt a "faster pace for delivery" during 2012.

Councils and digital communications

Although digital communication on numerous platforms such as Facebook and Twitter is widespread amongst citizens, come councils seem to struggle to identify and thus to implement a successful digital strategy.

But these innovations enable quicker and more engaging interactions between citizens and the council.

The recently published Public Sector Digital Communications and Social Media survey that benchmarks public sector organisations’ understanding and current trends in digital communication and social media revealed invaluable findings on how public organisations are facing the digital driven society

Social Media

Social Media should be seen as one channel in a communications strategy that covers other digital channels like websites, SEO and mobile content delivery as well as offline tools. The engaging character of social media is seen as an effective way to engage in two-way dialogue in a citizen’s own space and at their convenience. Although quick and instant, councils seem to find managing the resource overhead more problematic. This may explain why most of those surveyed only reported using a few social media channels, although worryingly only 30% reported having social media in their communications strategy.

There is little point in pursuing a weak and unplanned social media activity. Like all activity within an organisation, social media objectives need to be set, a target audience identified and the necessary resources and budget secured.

Most public sector bodies are in fact embracing some social media activity, with social networking (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn) having the highest usage at 71% followed by microblogging (e.g. Twitter) with 69% usage. However, only 43% report that they are monitoring the effectiveness of social media engagement. How do the majority, not measuring their social media activity, know if it is meeting its objectives? Social media monitoring may be difficult but it is vital, and there are a range of solutions and training courses on the market to help with this.

Monitoring and measuring the effectiveness of the digital strategy will help councils understanding how users engage with their websites in order to improve customer journeys. High website traffic doesn’t necessarily mean an effective strategy: if citizens are dropping out before completing the tasks and reverting to phone contact then this can be seen as an expensive failure. These failures need to be identified so that they can be remedied. This can only be done with robust analytics and the skills to interpret them.  Above all, having metrics can help prove the success and justify digital marketing.

Creating efficiencies - do it online

It is important to recognise the channel costs of servicing citizens. Other surveys, such as SOCITM’s channel benchmarking survey, have indicated that channel costs are:

•    £8.23 Face-to-face
•    £3.21 Telephone
•    £0.39 Website

Clearly by directing people to self-serve online and ensuring that processes are as easy as possible, can create significant savings for a council receiving hundreds or thousands of contacts every day. These figures can be viewed for those light-touch services such as paying a bill, finding some information like a recycling collection day or submitting an application. For service provision where in-depth human interaction is required, beatbullying published at the Third Sector Digital Communication and Social Media convention provide the costs for 1-2-1 interventions:

•    £600 Face-to-face
•    £250 Telephone
•    £60 Online

Whilst the costs are much higher, there are clear similarities in the savings that can be made. Zipporah has been involved in helping numerous councils, which recognise the efficiency gains that can be made online by improving their operations and services on a digital platform through efficient e-commerce and e-booking solutions. By doing this, website visitors will have a better experience while organisations reduce their costs and improve service delivery.

Delivering services online is the most efficient way of engaging with service users, as acknowledged by 68% of those surveyed by GOSS. Added to this, 76% said they were under pressure to reduce costs. There seems a clear route to resolving the requirement to reduce costs, increase online engagement and making efficiency savings - put a channel shift strategy and budget in place to facilitate the delivery of more services online.