- Client
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
- Sector
- Visitor attraction · UNESCO World Heritage Site
- Role
- Ticketing & CRM Project Manager, then IT Programme Manager
- Period
- 2014 – 2017
The situation
Leonard Hulley joined Kew in 2014, before Elephas became his full-time business, as Ticketing & CRM Project Manager.
Kew had already committed significant budget to a new ticketing and CRM programme. Two suppliers had won it on a joint tender, offering an integrated solution. By the time he arrived, the ticketing system was live but key stakeholders felt their requirements had not been met. The CRM had not started — and turned out to be a separate platform rather than the integrated one the tender described.
What we did
- Renegotiated and novated the supplier contracts
- Rewrote the business case and the technical specifications
- Designed the integration layer between ticketing and CRM
- Built half of that integration when the suppliers could not deliver it
- Reported to senior management boards, and worked with Defra on funding
- Organised training and wrote documentation for everyone from board members to gate staff
The outcome
The programme was recovered, and Leonard was promoted to IT Programme Manager with a portfolio worth millions of pounds.
He kept working hands-on in that role. PCI DSS compliance was delivered in-house, from non-compliance through audit to self-certification, rather than bought in from a specialist. He built a reporting suite for the business and designed and tested a mobile tree risk assessment app on Android. The wider portfolio covered around 1,000 devices rolled out on a device-as-a-service model, network, storage and telephony upgrades, and electronic records management on SharePoint.
What made the difference
The programme did not have to wait for the suppliers to find capacity they didn't have. The person managing it could also design the integration and write it.
That combination — able to hold suppliers to account and able to build — is what we now offer as client-side technical assurance.