The AUK Conference - held on the 24th June 2008
The successfull conference was the first held by Accredit UK, at the Gaydon Heritage Motor Museum.
There is a news story, and photos, now live on the Accredit UK website at: http://www.accredituk.com/news/first-conference-proves-a-hit.html
This was described as the 'Start of the Journey' for AUK, holding their first conference for new applicants, present passed companies and to inform the ICT industry. Over 100 people attended the all-day conference, with 5 guest speakers.
Carl Chinn, a local historian, was a lively and entertaining host through out the day, guiding the content to SME's and the importance of such an accreditation.
Conference Programme - Summary of Presentations
There were speakers from:
1) Service Birmingham
2) Accredit UK
3) Alcatel-Lucent
4) Erudine
5) Cyber Security KTN
6) Winning Pitch
Service Birmingham explained how Birmingham City Council, the largest council in Europe, through Service B’ham were aiming to become a ‘global leader’. Service Birmingham, through CAPITA Business Services, have a 10 year £470million ICT support contract with the Council with clear plans to rebuild and improve the technology and communications systems. Part of this plan is to launch one contact phone number which will filter all of the 1 million populated customer base. There were 5 segments of focus for SB, these were: working partnerships, achieving standards, improvement through growth, a world class service and success through staff. The point of the talk was encouraging SME’s to become involved with councils and their tenders bids and stressing how important SME ‘specialism’ was in local fields of ICT. http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/GenerateContent?CONTENT_ITEM_ID=83375&CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE=0&MENU_ID=14440
Clive Mason, of Leadership Management UK, then explained why he had become involved with AUK. His no-nonsense, honest and transparent approach saw for him, AUK being a business development toolkit. He explained how the market needed it and how important standards now are for businesses and competition. As a product the AUK award should become part of company culture helping the business to improve and develop with its guides and assessment programme. Success can then be seen in a business’s people – it’s staff. The journey of AUK is thus one of ‘improvement’ and like any journey the first step is defined as the hardest to make. It was also stressed that AUK was still in its earliest stage and that purchaser recognition would undoubtedly follow later and thus urged businesses to become involved as early as possible. It was also clarified that AUK were there to help and support businesses along the process and that an external view with expertise, is always helpful and is usually what is needed. http://www.accredituk.com/
Cliff Warder, from Alactel-Lucent, continued, explaining how SME’s can add real value to ICT and the industry. This talk focused on the importance of innovation, social networking and local supply. The importance of business influence from SME’s and the manner in which SME’ worked with larger companies was also highlighted. The run-down of the importance of communications, processes and systems was the key theme and message. http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/wps/portal
Erudine then presented their case study of an SME growing and working with large companies, such as multi-nationals. This interesting and personal talk stressed the problems SME’s face when working with larger companies and supplying ICT. Problems such as access, time, decision making process, the number of meetings and costs all featured in their informative story. They underlined the need for valuable staff, adaptable systems, the need to stick by company morals/culture and the ever-important issue of full-professionalism. Erudine also explained that such business growth demanded high levels of time, effort and the overall ‘roller-coaster’ of rapid business transformation and growth. They have an interesting website with impressive products including the Behaviour Engine!: http://www.erudine.com/home
The next speaker was Andrea Simmons, a data security specialist from SPS – Simmons Professional Services Limited. Mrs Simmons was entertaining and educational in summarising all the legal responsibilities of a company when handling data. Many legal responsibilities and changes/acts to be aware of were made clear and the importance of data security was paramount throughout. A former UKita member, we can recommend her for legal/data management training, advice and presenting. More can be found out here: http://www.simmonsprofessionalservices.co.uk/aboutus.htm
The final speaker of the day was Gary McQuade from Winning Pitch plc. The speech was aimed at ‘achieving better connectivity’ for SME’s. This included clear vision, competitive edge, hunger, passion and customer considerations. An interesting mini-seminar stressed the need for innovation, engagement, momentum and following formulas. A ‘winning zone’ is the aim using a winning formula for success in business. http://www.winning-pitch.co.uk/
The conference was concluded with the presentations of the Accredit UK second segment – Software Development – accreditation awards.
For more info on companies that have achieved this standard, including 6 of the 9 who are UKita members, please link here. There are also 4 UKita members involved in the Assessor roles for this AWM/EU funded project.
To read more about Accredit UK please visit: http://www.accredituk.com/
UKita are encouraging all members to become involved in this industry-lead accrediation development.