City and Guilds Institute Selects Unified Solutions to
build their new web site
The City & Guilds Group was established in 1878 and
granted a Royal Charter in 1900. For the last 40 years, development
and the awarding of qualifications has become their core
business.
The City & Guilds Trustees recently
decided to create a new research and development institute to
extend its role from being primarily an awarding body. The newly
formed City and Guilds Institute required a brand new web site to
meet the needs of a broad spectrum of international stakeholders.
After a very competitive tender process Unified Solutions was
selected as their preferred supplier.
Unified Solutions has been designing,
implementing, managing and hosting websites since 1995. Based in
Slough, and operating across the whole of the UK and Ireland,
Unified Solutions has enjoyed success by concentrating on designing
usable, navigable and accessible websites based around a content
management system.
The company has grown organically over the
years and is consistently recognised as a market leader for the
design and implementation of information management systems. Their
impressive list of customers include The British Museum Company,
Surrey County Council, The Institute of Cancer Research. The
International Psychoanalytical Association, CfBT Education Trust,
Cardiff University, Association of Teachers and Lecturers,
Nottingham Trent University and Osborne Clarke.
The main purpose of the new website is to act
as an exchange and network for information and ideas, and will be
primarily be used by the research community and policy makers, to
communicate through the transfer of information. An important
requirement was that it included a number of discussion forums and
interactive features such as surveys and straw polls.
Nick Grist, Senior IT Manger at CGI explains
that "It was essential to develop a site that could be the
principal tool for communication for our global community. It must
have a broad appeal to all stakeholders as it will be the main
portal for Research in Education and Training
Simplicity of use was a key factor and it was essential that the
site could be regularly updated by non technical users and that
contributions from visitors could be encouraged and
regulated. We are expecting a great deal of discussion and
user interaction."
Tim Chalklen, Managing Director at Unified
Solutions comments that "With these aims in mind Unified Solutions
recommended the Immediacy content management system as the ideal
platform from which the site can be managed. A key consideration
for the CGI was the ease of use of the CMS and the WYSIWYG editor -
a key feature of the Immediacy CMS which gives non-technical users
the ability to add content easily with drag and drop
simplicity. The new site also needed to be scalable, as it
will continue to develop and grow over time and as membership and
hits increase, so too will the need for a wide range of discussion
forums, online communities and micro sites. We are delighted that
City and Guilds have chosen Unified Solutions for this prestigious
project."
Nick Grist explains why they choose Unified
for the project. "Unified Solutions came highly recommended and we
were particularly impressed with the fact that the project team
listened to our requirements and proposed a solution that was
tailored exactly to our needs. They are a great team and they are
truly committed to making this new site a success. We look forward
to working with them."
To find out more about this project and others
like it contact Sales on 01753 775050 or e-mail sales@unified.co.uk