Advanced Halo Awards announced for best practice in the industry
Advanced Business Solutions (Advanced) has announced seven customer winners at this year’s prestigious Advanced Halo Awards. The winners of the 2015 awards were announced at the company’s annual Advanced World Customer Conference which took place yesterday at the Business Design Centre in London.
Now in its fourth year, the annual awards programme for customers is designed to recognise best practice and achievement amongst organisations using its specialist finance, HR, payroll, ticketing, fundraising and membership CRM software.
The seven winners announced at the recent awards ceremony were:
- Street League, Outstanding Team of the Year
- Bidvest Foodservice & Bidvest Logistics, Outstanding Contribution To Charity
- Skipton Group, Advanced Green Award
- Leicester Tigers, Best Use of Social Media
- Dragon School, Greatest Savings through Software
- Nottingham Student Union, Most Innovative Use of Software
- Beating Bowel Cancer, Greatest Impact on Customer and Supporter Engagement
“For the fourth consecutive year, we are recognising the achievements of our long-standing and loyal customers through the Advanced Halo Awards. These awards provide a significant opportunity for our customers to demonstrate their commitment to technology and the successful results they are achieving through their use of our innovative technology,” said Simon Fowler, Managing Director of Advanced Business Solutions (Commercial division).
BACK OFFICE SOLUTIONS
Street League
Using Advanced Exchequer, the small team of three people manage the entire accounting process of a £4.6m turnover charity which is split across 13 regions sub-divided into 22 teams across England and Scotland.
“At Street League we have a small finance team managing the entire accounting process for 13 regions across England and Scotland. The reporting and analytical functions of Exchequer have enabled us to produce ‘Income & Expenditure’ reports for each region at a team level. This enables Operations Managers to take ownership of their regional expenditure and make decisions based on accurate information,” commented Lesley Caron, Finance Director, Street League.
Bidvest Food Service & Bidvest Logistics
Bidvest, an Advanced Business Solutions OpenAccounts customer, has a procurement team of six people who in the last seven years has raised and donated an incredible £185,000 to its chosen charities.
“Bidvest is delighted to receive this award. The hard work that goes into raising funds for Hospitality Action is a credit to our suppliers, including Advanced Business Solutions who have continuously supported our event. We have nominated Hospitality Action to receive the kind donation from Advanced Business Solutions and this will go a long way in helping people who work, or have worked in the hospitality industry in the UK that find themselves in crisis.”
Skipton Group
Using HR Software from Advanced Business Solutions, Skipton has automated its HR processes making them all paperless. Employees can now interact with HR online not only speeding up the processes and making service delivery more efficient, but eliminating a lengthy paper trail.
“At Skipton Building Society, we have saved hundreds of man hours every month by automating HR tasks with Advanced’s OpenHR solution. OpenHR has been a key part if our HR strategy to support more staff to save for retirement and since implementing the software the number of staff enrolled in our pension scheme has risen by more than 10%. We are delighted to be recognised for our commitment to our staff by receiving this Halo Award,” comments Jonathon McNaughton, HR Systems and MI Manager, Skipton Group.
Nottingham Student Union
An Advanced Business Solutions Exchequer customer, Nottingham SU has recently created a bespoke Student Expense Application (eXpense365) which integrates to Exchequer to enable club and society organisers to electronically submit expense claims using their smartphone or tablet for 24 hour approval. The application reduces the time and cost to process expense claims by 15%, eliminates queries and delays incurred with the previous paper based process and gives event organisers control of their club or society.
“We implemented Advanced Exchequer to not only streamline the management of our finances but also to automate the processing of 20,000 student expense claims per year both of which have transformed the efficiency of our organisation. Working closely with the Advanced team to create the bespoke student expenses app we have significantly saved time and money for the Student Union. We are delighted to be recognised for this with our Halo Award,” commented Maria Brown, Finance Manager, Nottingham Student Union.
TICKETING SOLUTIONS
Leicester Tigers
Having successfully increased its online ticket sales from £400,000 to over £1 million using TALENT Sport from Advanced, Leicester Tigers Rugby Club turned to social media to enhance their fan engagement strategy and widen the channels of communication with its fans – Facebook and Twitter are the preferred channels where video shares are very popular.
“Leicester Tigers and rugby are famed for their hospitality, and we've worked hard to provide a digital version of our ethos and it's great to be recognised for that effort. We've worked with Advanced Business Solutions for over a decade and they have constantly adapted to keep up with the needs of Leicester Tigers, other clubs and our supporters,” commented Chris Rose, Head of Brand, Leicester Tigers.
Dragon School
An Advanced Ticketing Cloud Venue customer, Dragon School has used the online ticketing kiosk to reduce the administration around the events they run by 50%. The online kiosk has also meant they can reach a wider audience of potential ticket purchasers increasing important revenues to this charity – a good example being a recent WW1 commemoration event which was attended by 450 people, double what they would have expected without the online facility.
“The development team has reduced the administration of external events by more than 50% using our new online ticketing solution from Advanced. With the appointment of the Development Database Officer, who handles all elements of setting up events and online registrations, we are now able to organise many more alumni events and self-funding community events.”
“The system was launched in September and we successfully registered 95% of the 450 attendees for our WW1 commemoration and 170 registered for this year’s Father’s Breakfast online, 40% more than previous years. The development team is now testing a new online development which enables past and current parents and staff, as well as Old Dragons to update their own profiles, join industry groups and subscribe or unsubscribe to publications,” commented Jane Pendry, Head of Development, Dragon School.
NFP SOLUTIONS
Beating Bowel Cancer
The Institute of Fundraising Charity of the Year 2015 Award Winner recognises its 50% increase in fundraising a large part of which can be attributed to their ‘Decembeard Campaign’, where it successfully engaged with charity staff and volunteers to run a major digital campaign that started with analysing donor data to create digital personas of their donors which highlighted Instagram as the channel of choice for their newly identified ‘hipster’ persona.
“We are delighted to be an Advanced Halo Award winner. Our strategy is built on community and events fundraising with an emphasis on digital communications. The implementation of Donor Strategy has played a crucial role in our strategy by providing a better understanding of donors and how to engage with them. We have therefore been able to drive our fundraising strategy forward, resulting in a significant increase in our annual income,” commented Graham Kelly, Director of Fundraising, Beating Bowel Cancer.