Webinars

Tuesday, 30th April 2013, 14:00—VerseOne CMS for Housing

Acis Group Case Study 

To see the new CMS that has enabled Acis Group to take control of their website book a free place on VerseOne's Housing Sector Webinar

'Limitations to our old CMS meant that we weren’t able to make the most effective use of an invaluable method for communicating with customers, service users and stakeholders. A better content management function of the website means we now have the ability to update content more efficiently and effectively and this will help us keep our tenants up to date—particularly on changes such as the welfare reforms’ — Tim Steele, Marketing and Communications Manager at Acis Group 

Acis Group provides over 5,400 affordable homes across eleven local authority areas in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire, and over 1,100 units of student accommodation in Sheffield and Nottingham. The organisation is renowned for being a dynamic and forward-thinking housing provider—going beyond the bricks and mortar to focus on the people that live within its homes and communities.

In the context of the Welfare Reforms the timing of the launch of the new website is crucial as it means the internet can play a central role in communicating the changes to customers.

‘Not only was our former corporate website out of date from a design perspective, technically it was also inflexible and not fit for purpose at the back-end—both from a usability and a content management perspective,’ reflects Tim.

‘These limitations meant that we weren’t able to make the most effective use of an invaluable method for communicating with customers, service users and stakeholders. A better content management function of the website means we now have the ability to update content more efficiently and effectively and this will help us keep our tenants up to date—particularly on changes such as the welfare reforms’.

Acis Group has partnered with VerseOne Technologies to deliver a new customer-focused website that is easy to navigate as well as manage at the back-end. In addition to delivering a fresh, clean and professional design the project has provided Acis Group with a robust and user-friendly CMS (Content Management System) platform that can drive the business’ future development.

To see the CMS that has enabled Acis Group to take control of their website book a free place on VerseOne's Housing Sector Webinar

Upcoming, April 2013—VerseOne’s 'Creating an Effective Intranet Strategy' webinar

The session will cover the various theories of intranet strategy, a framework to put create an effective strategy for your business, as well as the insights and a Q&A with someone who has recently been through the process—Nick Spencer, from Wokingham Borough Council. Given the current driver for knowledge sharing and cross-pollination of ideas across sectors, this Webinar is non sector-specific, and we welcome organisations from the housing sector, NHS, commercial and local governement arenas to log on and take part.

What is the purpose of your current or future intranet project?

• An internal output of the latest news and announcements of your organisation?
• A central hub of social interaction; building relationships between staff and bringing them closer together?
• Is it more document based, providing a valuable resource to store staff guidelines, procedural handbooks and HR type forms?

Or is it a combination of a number of the above elements..?

Encouraging User Buy-in to the Intranet Project—Case Study: Nick Spencer, Wokingham Borough Council

Whatever the purpose of your intranet project, it is crucial to encourage the end users—your staff and internal stakeholeders—to buy in to the project as much as possible during the planning stage.

This can be a huge challenge for intranet project teams due to a number of common preconceptions amongst staff and internal stakeholders—such as:

• Having no confidence in, or poor experiences of the existing solution
• The view that the intranet project is technical and does not relate to their job function
• A feeling that decisions on the intranet are inaccessible to them, or a that their needs and requirements will not be accomodated in the new project.

As one of the key drivers of the intranet project was that the council wanted to foster inclusiveness, consultation, and collaboration as their internal values, Wokingham Borough Council wanted to tackle these challenges by involving and consulting staffmembers from the outset of their project.

Wokingham Borough Council worked alongside VerseOne to insure that the intranet project was driven by the right strategy and by taking a consultative approach and involving staffmembers throughout the process, Wokingham's project team have achieved their objective of delivering an intranet project that has been "created by staff, for staff."

As a result, Wokingham Borough Council has seen a significant increase in the use of their intranet as well as positive feedback on the look feel and functionality of their solution.

To provide a more in depth insight into how Wokingham worked this consultative approach into the process, Nick Spencer, Web Manager at Wokingham Borough Council will be our guest during the webiner to share his own experiences of the project, and to answer any questions about the process or project from other webinar participants.

Click here to express your interest in a session similar to the above in April 2013.

Last updated: 16 April 2013