“Saving hundreds of working days per year”
The migration of Primera's Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) to the Vicinity Place Management Platform
Background
Primera, a leading regeneration consultancy, provides comprehensive services across the public, private, voluntary, and community sectors. As part of its portfolio, Primera manages twelve Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) across London, including Aldgate Connect, Central District Alliance, Cheapside, Culture Mile, Eastern Quarter, Fleet Street, Harley Street, Hatton Garden, and London Heritage Quarter.
To enhance their data-driven approach and improve operational efficiency, Primera needed a robust CRM solution to replace their previous system.
Key challenges and goals
Primera's primary goals were to consolidate data across multiple BIDs, streamline data management, and improve overall efficiency. Their previous CRM system was inadequate: it was slow, difficult to use, and did not meet their evolving needs for tracking member data, managing ballots, and capturing the value the BID teams were creating. The need for a user-friendly, comprehensive platform was paramount.
Project Initiation
The project began with the London Heritage Quarter (LHQ) group of four BIDs and subsequently EC BID. Led by Henry Johnstone, the initial objectives were to implement a system that could manage all four LHQ BIDs under one single, efficient system, allowing for effective data segmentation and decision-making. Henry evaluated the Vicinity platform.
“The user interface is the most striking thing. Everything you need on Vicinity is two clicks away. Go though to businesses, link through to people. Everything is connected and circular. Activity logging is brilliant and the ability to add a financial cost to activities gives you a nice timeline and value returned against BID levy.”
Subsequently, EC BID and then the remaining BIDs moved to Vicinity in a 3 month long migration project.
Henry Johnstone, EC BID
"Vicinity is intuitive and easy to use. The activity logging feature and auto-updater for the council levy payer list saved us significant time and reduced errors."
Implementation and Execution
Key Steps:
Data Sharing Agreements: Established necessary agreements to access old systems and process BID data.
System Demonstrations: Lisa from Vicinity demonstrated the system to BID managers, outlining the onboarding and training process.
Data Migration: Imported data from old systems, supplemented with fresh data from local authorities to ensure accuracy.
Training: Conducted online and in-person training sessions, ensuring each BID manager and team member was well-versed in using the new platform.
Challenges and Solutions:
Data Quality: Some BIDs provided data from various sources including the old CRM, individual spreadsheets and local authority data extracts, requiring careful review and de-duplication. In some cases this data cleansing and merging task took weeks of work for the Vicinity team, in collaboration with the BID teams.
Tight Deadlines: Quick turnaround was needed to extract data before the old system contract ended. Collaboration with BID Managers and incoming COO, Paul Hewitt facilitated timely completion.
Data Extraction: Extracting data from the old system was challenging due to access issues and data formatting, which was resolved through persistent efforts and Vicinity’s technical expertise.
Aaron Finn, Hatton Garden BID
"The process was so easy, and everything is now in one place, making our lives much easier.
The live chat system is incredibly helpful, with prompt responses from Lisa and the team."
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The new system was much easier to use, with advanced filtering tools and customisable features.
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Tasks that previously took days, such as updating the council levy payer list, now took less than an hour.
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The platform allowed for better tracking of interactions, activities, and other aspects of value delivered by the BIDs.
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Using the mobile version of Vicinity, team members can quickly record items into the system on the go, enhancing field operations.
Results and Impact
The migration to Vicinity brought immediate benefits:
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
Data Quality Improvement: Significant enhancement in the quality of data, including higher percentages of valid contact information.
Time Savings: Reduced time spent on data updates and administrative tasks, freeing up resources for strategic initiatives. For Henry Johnstone, the monthly task of updating the levy list from the local authority was reduced from over a day to less than half an hour. Across the 12 BID areas this is expected to save the BID teams in excess of 100 days work per year, for this one activity alone. Aaron Finn at Hatton Garden BID can see comparable time savings, receiving the PCT list from the local authority weekly.
Unique Features and Solutions
Vicinity's platform stood out for its:
Customisation: Ability to introduce bespoke columns and fields unique to each BID while maintaining a consistent structure across all BIDs.
Integrations: Ability to integrate with Mailchimp and websites for data population and enhanced data management features.
Data Updater: A revamped data updater facilitating multi-BID area management in a single system.
Gordon Brockie, Central District Alliance
“The platform is great, I can’t believe it took us this long to sign up to Vicinity”
Lessons Learned
Effective data management and timely communication were critical. The establishment of ‘power users’ in each BID was essential. For Henry, thinking through the data layouts, tags and ways of working with the database before introducing it to the team ensured the team are all working in the same way.
Collaboration and Communication
Lisa from Vicinity played a pivotal role in maintaining communication and providing training, both online and in-person, ensuring each BIDs’ needs were met. Aaron said “super helpful, super engaging, she explains things in simple but not patronising tone. As the key point of contact throughout the process she was invaluable.” The collaborative approach fostered strong relationships and ensured the project's success.
Future recommendations
Ideas for future collaboration are being circulated including:
More management data around how the teams are using the system to help them manage the platform more effectively.
A street management function to keep an inventory of assets
Integration into ambassador recording systems to automate data entry into the system and save the teams more time
With partners like Primera, continuously informing the development pipeline, Vicinity will continue to build the best place management platform for the BID market.
Conclusion
The migration of Primera's BIDs to the Vicinity Place Management Platform exemplifies how strategic planning, effective communication, and innovative technology can transform operations and drive data-driven decision-making. This project not only enhanced operational efficiency but also laid the foundation for future growth and success of Primera and Vicinity.