The Covent Garden Market Authority (www.newcoventgardenmarket.com) was set up in 1961 as a statutory body to own and operate the UK's largest fresh produce market. The organization provides essential services such as the management, supervision and security of the site, heating, electricity, cleaning, refuse disposal and maintenance of buildings and roads. The organization also handles the letting of trading premises and offices to tenants.
The Market's existing IT systems and business processes were not standardized and largely inefficient and outdated. They needed an IT solution to support a major organizational restructuring of the Market to enable an aggressive modernization plan to secure its future.
Sciamus designed and managed a root and branch overhaul of the market's entire IT Infrastructure. This included:
- Auditing the existing network and IT infrastructure.
- Designing and implementing a new network to provide high performance and resilience to a range of new systems and IT processes which helped drive the markets transformational change.
- Identifying candidate IT systems to manage the Market's lease management operation, covering 240 companies on the site, and managing the process for deciding the best of breed solution for the Market.
- Working with the change management team to define the operational business processes required to support the new IT infrastructure.
- Consultation, development and support of the Market's official web site.
The outcome is a vastly more efficient operation, with:
- Improved business process automation.
- Improved data quality, leading to better customer management.
- Improved financial management.
- Increased visibility and auditing of the Market's processes and operations.
Sciamus' input to this major change management programme is summed up by Jan Lloyd, CEO of the Covent Garden Market Authority:
"Sciamus provided a comprehensive and highly professional service in very challenging time scales. Their delivery of best of breed systems and networks contributed significantly to the revitalisation of the Market, bringing its technology and business processes into the 21st. century."