Belfast company wins Australian contract

It has been revealed that Belfast-based customer relationship management specialist, Lagan, has been selected as a strategic partner in an £11 million contract to provide an integrated housing system in Melbourne, Australia.

The new system is designed to better manage the more than 72,000 public housing properties across Victoria, and Lagan's FrontLine solution will allow organisations to communicate more effectively with citizens or customers through telephone and face to face, via any electronic channels and in any supported language.

Des Speed, Managing Director of Lagan, said: “This is Lagan’s first contract in Australia and we are committed to deliver a solution to the State of Victoria’s Office of Housing that is both tailored to their stated needs and flexible to accommodate the changes which will inevitably be required over time. We want this to be a great first reference for Lagan and a platform for our future business expansion in the region.”

Bronwyn Pike, the Minister for Community Services and Housing for the State Government of Victoria said that the new computer system would deliver "substantial benefits" for public housing tenants across the state.

She added: "This system will allow the Office of Housing to better manage stock, cut costs and meet the needs of tenants quickly and efficiently and it will also give public tenants access to fast, reliable information about their rental accounts and housing services via the Internet."

Based in Belfast, Lagan was established in 1994 and delivers customer relationship management solutions, principally to the government and communications sectors.

Lagan implemented one of the UK's first major CRM systems at Birmingham City Council, and is among the leading suppliers of Citizen Relationship Management systems to local government.

In June 2002, Lagan was chosen as runner-up in the Government Computing Innovation Awards for ‘the project that has done most to advance e-government’.

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