UK IT Industry Awards 2009: Private Sector Project of the Year

The Project Excellence categories are always among the most popular and competitive in the UK IT Industry Awards, and this year’s crop is no different.

As part of the build up to the lavish prizegiving ceremony to be held at the Battersea Park Events Arena in London on Thursday 12 November 2009, we profile the finalists for the Private Sector Project of the Year award.

To view the full list of finalists for each award, and to book your table at what will be the biggest night of the UK IT calendar, visit our web site at www.computing.co.uk/awards.

Trowers & Hamlins -­ IS business continuity

The growing reliance of the law firm’s worldwide offices on services provided from London and the threat of disruption from terrorism, fire, flood or pandemics led Trowers & Hamlins to review its plans for the provision of business continuity services. Critical business data has been secured against loss, and staff are now able to access systems should the London offices be unavailable.

British Airways -­ zero touch desktop

The zero touch desktop (ZTD) project has transformed the performance, delivery and support of 20,000 desktop and laptop PCs in British Airways (BA). BA has automated every step of these processes and eliminated all “touches” by engineers. Using an entirely UK-based BA manpower investment, the project will return £15m of benefits over two years. ZTD is delivering huge productivity and cost benefits during the worst ever trading environment for the aviation industry.

TUI UK & Ireland -­ StepStone e-recruitment

Travel group TUI UK & Ireland has implemented an e-recruitment system from StepStone. The platform helped the company to reduce the time from job offer to contract from three weeks to 48 hours and cut recruitment costs by 50 per cent. Since going live in November 2008 TUI has managed more than 22,000 applications using the system.

Long Tall Sally/Portal Technology Systems -­ hybris://QuickLive

Clothing retailer Long Tall Sally (LTS) wanted to invest in a single e-commerce platform to support its aggressive expansion strategy. The system had to be implemented to tight deadlines and meet strict budget requirements while providing greater power and control to business rather than IT users. The project led to increases in profitability, competitiveness and online revenue.

Procter & Gamble -­ laptop encryption

Across Procter & Gamble (P&G) globally, more than 500 laptops are lost or stolen every year. Each laptop can contain restricted data ­ business plans and financial information ­ that if released would impact on P&G’s potential to compete, as well as employee, customer or consumer data. This UK-led project has lessened this vulnerability by providing full-disk encryption for all 70,000 laptops in P&G, requiring no effort from users.

Messier-Dowty/Telindus ­ -application performance management

Messier-Dowty is a world leader in aircraft landing gear systems. Operating across seven international sites, the firm was experiencing poor application performance and long file transfer times, with a significant effect on business productivity, efficiency and service delivery. Telindus deployed application performance management technologies to combat the problem.

WSP/ESRI (UK) -­ iGIS mapping portal

iGIS is an intranet mapping portal developed by design, engineering and management consultancy WSP, which integrates Google mapping and location services with the capabilities of ESRI’s ArcGIS Server to provide easy access to geographic information. Some of the tools allow users to analyse population statistics by area, undertake proximity searches, sketch site boundaries, annotate plans and produce professional-quality output.

Anglian Water/CSC ­- Debt management

To meet Anglian Water’s objective of improving debt management, CSC integrated Experian’s Tallyman software with SAP ­ a first for the UK utilities sector. Delivered on time and to budget, the system gives Anglian Water better control over debt management. Anglian expects to increase revenue collection by £1.3m in one year, and to see a return on investment in less than 24 months.

Clear Channel Outdoor UK -­ WAVe

Clear Channel Outdoor (CCO) is in the running for its revolutionary proof-of-posting system for billboard adverts, WAVe (Wireless Activity Verification). The system runs on Nokia N70 mobile phones and allows operations teams to scan unique 2D barcode labels, fitted on every poster and frame, to confirm posting. CCO was the first UK outdoor media owner to offer this service across its entire street furniture and billboard portfolio.

Balfour Beatty WorkPlace/Esteem Systems ­- Secure Citrix infrastructure

Esteem designed and implemented a centralised Citrix environment for 1,400 employees and 500 mobile workers. Given the needs of Balfour Beatty WorkPlace’s government clients, Esteem ensured the system was based on a fully restricted infrastructure to meet relevant security accreditation. Esteem also moved the hosting datacentre to a centralised, off-site location.