Working together in partnership with ISPAL

Background

ISPAL were previously known as The Institute of Leisure and Amenities Management (ILAM) and first became a customer of Centrepoint Computer Services Ltd. in 1996, using our Target® CRM/MRM system. This was the Superbase version and then ILAM migrated to the newer VB release.

However, in 2004, a change in management decided to change supplier and ILAM moved to an outsourced membership system supplier, which resulted in considerable problems. As a result of this, in early 2005 the Institute approached Centrepoint and asked how long it would take to move back to the highly successful relationship they had enjoyed before.

ILAM was informed that the organisation could either move back to the long established Target® product, or become one of the first to implement the revolutionary eTarget® CRM/MRM Internet solution. Because the idea of remote working offered many advantages, together with significant increased flexibility, ILAM decided to move ahead with the eTarget® system

The Project

Timescale was very short and both parties committed to an intense period of work. An incomplete Oracle database was received back from the outsourcing company but a combined effort eventually achieved a successful data conversion so that direct debits could be processed within one month.

ILAM was successfully using the eTarget® CRM/MRM database for both the central database functionality and the membership system in an extremely short time and has continued to use the system since that time. Both in-house and remote workers enjoy the flexibility and scope of the eTarget® solution. Full web integration has subsequently been incorporated to provide even more functionality within the organisation

The Result - ISPAL Today

The re-vamped and merged organisation is now called ISPAL and Centrepoint Computer Services Ltd. again helped in this process. The new ISPAL enjoys the fact that it is the most respected organisation of its kind in the UK today. The eTarget® software system is used on a daily basis to meet all the needs of this leading not-for-profit organisation in terms of CRM/MRM and integrated web and e-commerce functionality.

Since the original implementation, ISPAL and Centrepoint have worked closely together to provide increasing capability, especially within e-commerce. For example ISPAL has recently launched its Information Hub which enables members to search on information topics and then to download relevant PDF files.

Mike Drew, Head of IT, says: "We have enjoyed, and continue to enjoy, a very close and successful business relationship with Centrepoint. We believe that eTarget® has given us a significant business advantage within the industry".