Kew Gardens in the market for new business intelligence system

Kew Gardens CIO Ian McKetty tells Computing that all the 'front of house' systems are being replaced: EPOS, CRM and BI

Kew Gardens is replacing all of its 'front of house' systems, including EPOS, CRM and business intelligence capagilities.

Ian McKetty, CIO of Kew Gardens, told Computing that this is part of a programme to implement an improved visitor-facing systems programme.

"We're replacing all of the systems and services that touch the visitor," said McKetty. "The aim is to unify the experience, and give them a frictionless means to access Kew. It needs to be an easy way and seamless way to navigate us remotely or on site," he added.

McKetty explained that currently the organisation has no way to understand its visitors and their spending patterns.

"What we lack now is the ability to analyse the data we have. We don't have systems now that support us in generating any meaningful form of insights, so we can't dig into the data.

"So for instance a visitor might spend 20 pounds in our Orangerie. But what does that mean about the person? Where were they from, what's the demographic profile around how they interact with us? We have no means to understand that."

He stated that Kew is analysing the market now and assessing suppliers.

"We're soft market testing now. We had three potential suppliers in recently, and there are several more that will come in. We need systems that are easy to integrate. They also need to be easy to build on and pain free for our people."

McKetty also explained that whilst these systems must have certain qualities, he's not looking for best of breed.

"While it's important that they work well, they're not differentiating systems. They need to be good, but they don't need to be the best. But the ICMS, the collections management system, must be world class, because it differentiates us."

In an earlier interview, McKetty described the major project to implemented an Integrated Collections Management System, which will make the world's largest horticultural database open to anyone.