​Medway Council is a unitary council responsible for providing services (including education and social services) in Rochester, Strood, Chatham, Gillingham, Rainham, the nearby rural areas and the Hoo Peninsula, for over a quarter of a million people. The Council works in partnership with private, public and voluntary sectors, providing information to the public through its offices, website (www.medway.gov.uk), council newsletter and the local and national media.

One of the largest unitary authorities in England, Medway Council came into existence on 1 April 1998 and was amongst the first local authorities to execute the Government Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system initiative „to deliver more efficient customer services through modernisation‟.

CRM systems enable local authorities to understand, anticipate and manage the current and future service needs of their customers, and play a key role in improving the quality and efficiency of service delivery. Medway Council‟s solution, built on a Microsoft BizTalk 2004 platform, involved a total of four systems: electronic forms (Adobe Workflow and Form Server), CRM system (Onyx E-Shop), Asset Management (MapInfo Confirm) and the waste contractor‟s system.

The integration of four systems needed a skilled team with experience in handling critical system change. “ICS Solutions had experienced and skilled personnel available at short notice,” continued Sean. “They could guarantee that that work would be finished to strict deadlines.”

ICS Solutions liaised closely with Medway Council‟s in-house team of developers and provided the expert knowledge, skills and experience that were needed to integrate the systems using BizTalk, XML and SQL technologies. Simultaneously ICS Solutions worked with third parties to model business processes whilst ensuring that the tight deadline of six weeks was met.