Hounslow selects Salesforce to help drive digital transformation

Council looks to provide better services using mobile, social and cloud computing

The London Borough of Hounslow has selected Salesforce.com to help it harness social, mobile and cloud-based solutions in the delivery of services for residents of the borough.

The strategy, to begin this year, will reportedly save £600,000 in the current financial year, with further savings to come as legacy applications are retired. The majority of the project is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2014.

Changes to services will include an updated website for The London Borough of Hounslow, designed to be simpler and faster for people attempting to access the services they need. Mobility will also become a top priority, with council staff being free to use whichever device they want - be it PC, laptop, tablet or mobile - and able to access all applications required for work from the cloud.

"Our strategy isn't about technology, it's about customer-driven business design and data exploitation. Rather than becoming merely a ‘Council in the Cloud' we aspire to be the first platform-based, digital and genuinely data-driven council," said Anthony Kemp, director of corporate resources of London Borough of Hounslow and leader of the project.

"By embracing a platform-based approach and integration with social media we can position ourselves to be able to listen to residents 24/7 and respond to them using virtual agents," he said.

"We believe that Salesforce's heritage in CRM, their commitment to the UK public sector and the maturity and extent of their ecosystem makes them the best choice as our enterprise grade platform partner. Going forward we are keen harness a diverse range of partners," Kemp added.

Houslow has also selected services innovator Methods to support it in delivery of the new infrastructure. Dr Mark Thompson, strategy director for Methods and a key architect of the government's open ICT strategy, welcomed the council's approach.

"As consistent advocates and pioneers of open standards and platform-based redesign of public services since 2008, Methods is very excited to be partnering this landmark project," he said.

"Hounslow and Methods are paving the way for eventual component-based re-use of business functions, and resulting widespread innovation across the UK local services sector, in a way that directly complements GDS' transformational activities in central government.

"This will be of interest to all innovators within local services," Thompson added.