Irish Food Board - Bord Bia - selects Parity for web development project
Content authoring and web publishing efficiency anticipated to dramatically improve through new content management platform
Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, has selected Parity's Solutions business , a division of Parity Group plc, to develop its consumer-facing website as part of an integrated information management platform. This development will not only make publishing to the website much easier, but will also enable better working practices in internal document management, approval processes and collaboration – in short, providing intuitive content management.
Bord Bia's role is to promote Irish Food and Drink products worldwide, making its web presence an important communications channel to reach international buyers. Parity has been working with Bord Bia for over six years and is well-versed in understanding its specific business requirements.
A key reason for Parity's selection as preferred supplier was its understanding and expertise in delivering high quality and high performance websites and web portals for the public sector through Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). David Conkleton, Managing Director of Parity's Solutions business, explains, “Interaction across large communities and between organisations can now be easily achieved through the greater access to internal information that internet-based technology provides.”
Conkleton continues, “Efficient content management is an absolute pre-requisite within a successful business. For those in the public sector who are intrinsically consumer-facing, it is all the more crucial and the use of an underlying platform such as MOSS allows a smooth and rapid generation of approved and published web content, keeping your target community up-to-date.”
Parity has a strong software development operation in Northern Ireland, with some unique skills using Microsoft technologies. It has established a track record of delivering leading-edge websites for many public sector organisations to improve services to citizens and industry. Organisations, which include Ofgem, EHRC and Bedfordshire and Luton Fire and Rescue Service, have greatly benefited from the transactional capability and ease with which documents can be published to the web – giving greater access to information across large communities and across the whole business.
For Bord Bia, it will mean it can provide, with greater efficiency, information for consumers, producers and buyers, including details of recipes, its quality schemes, programmes for manufacturers and new publications. All of which will be integrated within their existing Microsoft Customer Relationship Management system.
“We are a service organisation by definition,” explains Julian Smith, Information Services Manager of Bord Bia. “We have a duty of care to ensure that not only do we give out up-to-the-minute information, but also that we do this as efficiently as possible. We have been working with Parity for six years and we appreciate their technical competence and cost-effective implementation capability. Parity's team of professionals has allowed us to deliver on time and to budget.”
The new website is due for launch in April 2008.
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Notes to Editors:
Parity is a leading IT technology and resource services organisation delivering a range of technical, resource and training solutions that contribute to the business growth and economic performance of private and public sector clients. Their experience allows for effective business transformation through innovative managed service and outsourced programmes.
Parity's 30 years’ expertise in Project and Programme Management minimises business risk associated with systems implementation, integration or business change for clients. Listed on the London Stock Exchange, Parity recorded a turnover of over £150m in 2006.
Parity has deep industry knowledge and expertise in Finance, Utilities, Telecoms and the Public Sector delivering people, skills and concepts for IT projects and programmes throughout the UK. Parity have provided these services to a range of notable clients, including Hewlett Packard, IBM, Ministry of Defence, Royal Bank of Scotland, Northern Ireland Electricity, Siemens and GlaxoSmithKline.
Contact details:
For further information please contact Caroline Overholt at Parity (c.overholt@parity.net) or Will Gardiner at Itpr (willg@itpr.co.uk)
