News, articles and events
January 2012
WCL win Reading UTC Bid
WCL have been selected by the Department for Education and the University Technical College (UTC) key sponsor, Oxford and Cherwell Valley College, to deliver the new Reading UTC which will specialise in software engineering and computer science. Starting immediately, WCL will provide Project Management support to the UTC team over the next 21 months to ensure the college opens on time in September 2013. WCL's Schools Director, Nigel Hall, said "We're delighted to have been appointed by OCVC as their delivery partner and we're looking forward to working with them and DfE on delivering this highly innovative UTC which will help bring significant new employment and advancement opportunities to students in and around south east Reading."
Customer Attuned
The Customer Management team are working on a unique, innovative approach to unlock customer value in B2B businesses via a practical methodology and toolset that will systematically orientate companies to place trust, interdependence and equity at the heart of everything they do. Please click here for a sneak preview.
BUPA extends scope of WCL's work
BUPA have extended WCL's contracts to support the Global Technology Information Systems (GTIS) rollout out improved programme management governance and reporting arrangements to key Business Units across the organisation.
December 2011
WCL completes first C3CA assessment in FE
Sussex Downs college has become the first Further Education provider to use the C3CA tool to help improve its Learner Journey. Please click here for what Melanie Hunt, the College Principal, said about the experience.
Season's Greetings from WCL
Please click above to view our Christmas greeting to all our clients, partners, friends & associates.
November 2011
Fresh Thinking in Further Education
For the AoC conference WCL produced a one-pager which highlights some of the new ideas WCL have brought to the sector from different fields, disciplines and cultures.
Click here to see Fresh Thinking in Further Education.
Customer Journey Assessment - presentation at AoC Conference 16th November
The Annual AoC Conference is one of the highlights of the college year. For the second year running, Kieron White has given a highly insightful and thought provoking presentation to a packed audience. This year's topic was the Customer Journey Management, where Kieron presented WCL's new service offering to colleges, designed specifically to increase the number of college "customers", and therefore revenues. Also speaking was Melanie Hunt, Principal of Sussex Downs College who has been through the process and who talked about the benefits to the college and the changes they are making as a result.
For more information on the Customer Journey Assessment, please contact Kieron White.
Thank you to WCL - in Swahili
As part of WCL's charitable donations campain, we give our employees a cash sum for them to donate to the cause or charity of thier choice. In 2009, Jo Vigor, one of our senior consultants donated her sum to sponsor a student, Leah Muti, from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, to come to the UK to study for her Masters in Public Health qualification. We were delighted to recieve a thank you note from Leah saying that she has now qualified and is putting her qualification to good use for an organisation doing important work in Dar es Salaam called Pastoral Activities and Services for people with AIDS (PASADA). Presently, PASADA is handling over 700 patient visits each week, with over 200 individuals each month receiving testing and counseling services.
Click here to read the note from Leah
October 2011
3 Reasons why HR Departments should lead organisational change
Every new project or programme an organisation carries out involves change of some sort. And any review of the literature will tell you that having a compelling vision, changing behaviours and communications are vital to any successful change programme. Yet the vast majority of change programmes in large organisations fail. Why is that? We believe the reason they fail is that the leading role is not carried out by the HR function. Many change programmes today have IT leading the change – which is why so many Project and Programme Management Offices (PMOs) are located in IT departments. As organisations wake up to the fact that it is people who make or break change programmes, we believe that leading organisations will increasingly locate their PMOs within their HR Departments in the future.
Click here to read the full article.
WCL and key partners win funding for “Enterprise Agenda for Adults” project
London, UK – 17th October 2011: WCL announced today that, along with eight partners they had been awarded £303,000 from the AoC’s Collaboration and Shared Services Grant to deliver their Enterprise Agenda for Adults project. The project creates a sustainable adult market for further education (FE) and is aimed at increasing the number of adult learners in colleges, specialist adult services, and other providers, by providing a curriculum based around six work and entrepreneurial themes: Business Start-up; From Passion to Profit; E-commerce; Social Media & Networking; Social Enterprise; and Benefits to Enterprise.
Click here to see the press release.
September 2011
WCL Wins DfE Academies/Free School Framework Contract
London, UK – 29 September 2011: WCL, experts in Public Sector change programmes announced today they have been awarded a 3 year framework contract to support to opening of Academies, Free Schools, University Technical Colleges (UTCs) and Studio Schools by the Department for Education (DfE).
AoC Conference 15-17th November
Kieron White and Peter Lavers will be presenting new ‘Customer Strategies’ for colleges at the AoC Conference 15-17th November. Building on WCL’s research, approaches and strategies will be discussed that colleges can use to improve the customer acquisition and retention of both learners and employers, and he’ll be sharing lessons and learning points from best practices in colleges and WCL’s Private Sector clients such as Aston Martin.
New Case Studies
Case studies have been published for:
August 2011
WCL values get international recognition
The Awaken Group interview Ashley Semmens on how WCL have developed and live our values: what's Confimility?! Click here to read/view the article.
July 2011
GLA Project Oracle Expansion
WCL Group Company The Social Innovation Partnership (TSIP - www.tsip.co.uk) is delighted to have won a tender for the expansion of this project, which is creating a market for supporting charity improvement in London.
DfE Free Schools Group
Following our highly successful support to the DfE City Challenge initiative across all three challenge areas during last two years ( click here for case study), educational specialist members of our team have now been engaged to work with the Department’s Free Schools group on the analysis and evaluation of proposals to set up new Free Schools.
Dorset Police appoint Alliantist and WCL for One Force initiative
In conjunction with our partner Alliantist, we are supporting key change initiatives in Dorset Police. The project further builds our credentials and experience in change management in the Public Sector, and we look forward to helping Dorset Police - and other forces - to make change happen in the current operational conditions. WCL Director Neil Watkins said "We are delighted to be working with Dorset Police on their One Force initiative, and also delighted that this is our first joint initiative with our partner Alliantist using their unique collaboration tool, pam. It is proof that the combination of change management services and best-practice tools for driving change and innovation is a very attractive proposition for our clients".
Work with The Pensions Regulator re-initiated
WCL in conjuction with our events partner The Live group have been reappointed by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) to plan stakeholder engagement events to communicate and explain the forthcoming fundamental changes to pensions requirements for SME's (Employer Compliance Regime). Click here to read the original case study.
WCL takes key role in new Creative Media Services Contract
Creative Choice, a Community Interest Company of small to medium sized organisations, have been appointed to deliver the Department for Education's innovative new framework for outsourced Creative Media Services (CMS).
WCL is one of the 12 founder members of Creative Choice (www.creative-choice.org), and will fulfil the independent Account Management role for CMS-commissioned services, which include PR, events, branding & design, photography, writers/web editors, video/film making, and creative digital services.
The CMS contract covers a three to four year period and is open to all government departments, non-departmental public bodies and the wider public sector.
The contract allows for a single, integrated company to deliver account, campaign and supply management of core creative media delivery services. The partnership is dedicated to building an agile and much wider supply chain selected from more than 150 small to medium sized communication organisations nationally and regionally to ensure best value and competitiveness.
Clients can access Creative Choice via a procurement portal or use the dedicated telephone number for assistance. Creative media organisations who wish to become part of the wider supply chain can also register via the Creative Choice website www.creative-choice.org.
CMS is the result of work between the DfE, the Central Office of Information (COI), the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) (latterly the Efficiency Reform Group at Cabinet Office), and the Government Communications Network (GCN) towards agreeing a strategy for rationalising the existing framework arrangements for government marketing and communications services in order that more expenditure is concentrated through fewer frameworks. It will provide a complementary delivery strand to the new strategic framework announced recently by the Cabinet Office designed to further improve the effectiveness and efficiency of government communications.
WCL is delighted to be carrying out the independent Account Management role for this important cross-Government contract. Kieron White, WCL’s MD, says: “being awarded a contract of this significance is testament to WCL’s outstanding reputation across Government. We are looking forward to working with the other Creative Choice founder members to continue to deliver a great service for our clients.”
New College Nottingham appoints WCL
We are delighted that New College Nottingham have appointed us to assist with a collaborative ownership approach to optimise the financial return on NCN's three estates and its assets.
June 2011
BUPA appoint WCL
WCL are delighted to announce their first piece of work with Healthcare insurance giant BUPA. Supporting one of their key internal change programmes, WCL will be proving change, programme and project management services for an initial 6 month period. WCL Director Neil Watkins said "This is our first piece of work in this important and growing sector, so we are delighted that BUPA chose WCL. We believe that our combination of high quality people and our proven approach to delivering will help make BUPA even more successful".
World Vision appoint WCL
WCL are assisting World Vision to improve the way in which its brand promise to customers and stakeholders are delivered, ensuring that the WV personality and values are reflected in how staff act in all internal and external interactions.
May 2011
Outsourcing and Shared Services Conference
WCL's Managing Director, Kieron White, presented our Collaborative Ownership approach at the Outsourcing and Shared Services Conference in May 2011. Please click here to view or download the slides.
TSIP Website launches - www.tsip.co.uk
We're proud to announce that TSIP have launched their new website. TSIP is a WCL Group company, and is an advisory social enterprise that aims to combine academic research and rigour with strategy and delivery support to solve some of the most intractable problems in society.
Please go to www.tsip.co.uk to view the site.
March 2011
The Case for a Chief Customer Officer (CCO)
Doug Leather of our partner in Africa, REAP Consulting (Pty) Ltd considers why more and more organisations are appointing CCOs. Please click here to read the article.
Customer Management - Back to Basics
Mark Hollyoake and Peter Lavers consider how organisations should take stock of the changed market conditions in which we operate in 2011, and how going back to the sound fundamental principles of customer management will help businesses positively respond to and serve a more sophisticated, savvy and demanding customer base.
Please click here to read the article, or here to download it as a pdf.
Nedbank Business Banking has been rated as one of the World's top customer management organisations
Peter Lavers conducted the CMAT™ assessment of Nedbank Business Bank in November 2010 via our African partner REAP Consulting (Pty) Ltd. He was delighted to find an organisation that has successfully turned the theory of customer centred business into reality. There’s a perception that ‘all banks are the same’, but Nedbank Business Banking has truly invested in differentiating themselves from their competitors via exceptional customer management delivered through their decentralised accountable business model.
CMAT™ is the private sector version of WCL's C3CA capability assessment tool.
Meeting the ASB Challenge Seminar
TSIP hosted a seminar on ASB in conjunction with the London Metropolitan University on Thursday, March 10th. The guest speakers were Prof Simon Hallsworth of London Metropolitan University; Paul Dunn, the Programme Manager for London on ASB; Jerry Rabot of TSIP; Ed Sherry, Programme Manager, the Metropolitan Police; and two of London's innovating housing associations - Catalyst Housing Group and Peabody. Please click here for more information.
February 2011
The Principle of 'Choice'
Stephen Bediako of TSIP explores how choice-based interventions could be used to tackle youth issues and street crime. Click here to read the article.
December 2010
WCL and Auxo launch social housing research initiative: Housing Sector Landscape Changes - for better or worse?
2010 was a significant year of change for the public and charitable sectors. Consistent with these significant shifts in emphasis, the housing landscape is also changing, but for better or worse?
The short survey explored sentiment across the housing sector and is aimed at building a picture of where professionals and thought-leaders see the risks and opportunities in the new landscape.
November 2010
WCL launches C3CA - a new approach to improve Customer Focus, Commercial Acumen and Cost Efficiency in Service Delivery and Outcomes
The pressure is on in public sector service delivery operations to think differently, and act quickly & decisively to cut costs without detrimentally affecting customer service and outcomes. This new approach - only available from WCL - addresses the three critical ‘levers’ that will enable success - Customer Focus, Commercial Acumen and Cost Efficiency - the "three Cs". Please click here to read the article or here to download it as a PDF.
WCL present Master Class at the Association of Colleges (AoC) Annual Conference
The session ran on the morning of Wednesday 17 November, and was entitled "Alternative approaches to merger: how innovative collaborative models are benefitting the sector".
It was a ‘how-to’ case study of a new approach to develop collaborative models that share services between colleges, achieving up to 25% savings and sharing functions that reach wider than traditional shared services.
The practical session demonstrated how these ‘by the sector, for the sector’ collaborative models deliver the quality and efficiency improvements of merger, whilst maintaining the benefits of individual College brand and identity.
Please click here to view or download the slides presented at the session.
How to make segmentation a reality at the customer facing level
Peter Lavers and Mark Hollyoake address the critical issues of implementing needs-based customer segmentation. Please click here to read the full article.
WCL welcomes The Social Innovation Partnership (TSIP) on-board
 We are delighted to welcome TSIP into the WCL family. TSIP is led by Jerry Rabot and Stephen Bediako and helps its clients solve some of the most intractable problems in society.
TSIP will have its own website soon, but in the interim please click here to find out more and contact Jerry or Stephen.
October 2010
London Councils announce merger of all services
The news that Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham councils have announced a possible merger of all of their services to create a single ‘super council’ that could be bigger than Glasgow or Leeds comes as no surprise. Click here to read about WCL's range of Collaborative Ownership models for locally shared services.
Fresh thinking on anti-social behaviour: look at the data, all of it!
Jerry Rabot responds to the HMIC report on policing anti-social behaviour. Please click here to read the full article.
Spending Review - the Impacts on the Education and Skills Sector
For a short analysis of the main impacts of the October 2010 Spending Review on the education and skills sector, please click here.
In-dealer Customer Experience improvement
In this article, Peter Lavers considers the complexities that automotive companies face in consistenlty delivering their desired brand experience to prospects and customers, and introduces a new approach to delivering real improvement. Please click here to read the full article.
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