Consilium ends year of growth on high note

Consilium Technologies has ended one of their most successful financial years to date by winning a major consulting contract from Birmingham City Council, one of the UK's largest public authorities.

Under the contract, Consilium will assist in a Best Value Review of the council’s IT capabilities as part of its preparations for the 2005 deadline set by government for UK authorities to deliver all of their services to citizens online. Working across the council’s 11 departments, Consilium will be assessing how effectively IT is empowering the council’s 50,000 plus employees to deliver better quality service.

Consilium’s recent success comes at the end of a financial year during which revenues grew and the company achieved a number of important milestones.

Among these were the completion of a £1.5 million funding round led by 3i, the international venture capital company and MMC adventures and the rebranding of the group of companies under the name Consilium Technologies.

The company launched an ASP (Application Service Provision) platform for delivering software application services to customers from BT Ignite’s datacentre in Bletchley, England and recruited a number of leading technology companies as solutions partners.

The establishment of key channel partnerships in the housing market resulting in sizeable orders from key suppliers such as SX3, Anite and Academy.

New customers included the London Borough of Newham, South Gloucester District Council, Ellesmere Port Council, Torr Homes and Sovereign Housing Association.

According to Chief Executive, Colin Reid, the developments over the last year have further strengthened Consilium’s position in the rapidly developing eGovernment sector which is worth an estimated £350 million annually.

He said: “The eGovernment agenda is posing major problems for many councils throughout the UK, not least because there is significant pressure on them to put very complex IT systems in place against tight deadlines. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of confusion in the marketplace.

“Our approach is to provide a framework within which we offer a complete IT solution in conjunction with our best of breed partners. This gives customers confidence that we can provide all of the pieces of a very complex jigsaw puzzle and that all of those pieces will fit together properly.”

Consilium, www.consiliumtechnologies.com