Capita: Driving Collaboration and Innovation with SMEs
At Capita, technology is ingrained within our DNA. We’re one of the largest IT organisations in the country, dedicated to supporting thousands of customers with software, cloud, cyber, RPA, digital connectivity and workplace IT solutions.
One of the greatest things about Capita is its commitment to collaboration with SMEs. Capita Scaling Partner (CSP) - our corporate VC business unit, is just one demonstration of this. CSP helps early stage B2B Software as a Service businesses scale rapidly by providing targeted access to thousands of trusted corporate and government relationships. Right across our business we support, sell to, buy from, share learnings and collaborate with SMEs every day.
The Wise Group - a leading social enterprise working to lift people out of poverty - builds bridges to opportunity for the most vulnerable in society through mentoring support, employment, skills, and energy advice. We initially met the Wise Group team last year, and instantly connected to the culture, ethos and purpose of the organisation, simply because it aligned so closely with our own – doing good, supporting communities, and delivering better outcomes for our citizens.
Together, our organisations pitched for (and won) the Department for Work and Pension’s JETS (Job Entry Targeted Support) Scotland contract. We believe we achieved this because our organisational values and vision are aligned. We share the end goal of lifting people out of poverty in Scotland, and there remains a hugely powerful sense of shared purpose and cultural ‘fit’ between our organisations.
Without a true alignment of purpose and streamlined goals, this plc/SME partnership simply wouldn’t have worked. Our organisations collectively responded to the JETS tender within two weeks, and together implemented and mobilised our hugely successful programme throughout the pandemic lockdown.
All meetings, tech installations and software rollouts were managed remotely, and delivered more successfully and smoothly than anyone could have imagined. Capita delivered all training on the Codis self-serve web platform (used by all JETS employability trainers and participants) remotely.
Codis is another huge collaboration success story between Capita, the Wise Group, and Salesforce. Together, we created a unique and intuitive platform especially for the needs of JETS stakeholders in Scotland. Close alliance between our organisations ensured early glitches were quickly resolved, and the resulting solution is resetting the bar in employability software. When designing CODIS, Scotland was in the midst of strict lockdown, so the web platform was built with a rich digital, mobile-first user experience in mind.
Since the data and analytics are owned by Capita, and the qualitative responses and feedback are received by the Wise Group, collaboration is vital in order to continuously refine the platform and ensure it remains relevant as the needs of JETS participants evolve over the post-pandemic months and years.
As stated by the Wise Group’s Digital Engagement Lead, Natasha Radmehr, “Codis has so much to offer participants. Not only can they use it to record and practice remote and virtual interviews, but they can then get tailored feedback on how they performed in each session. There’s also a mental health and wellbeing section to Codis, and this is crucial to us as JETS is about so much more than jobs, but overall wellbeing.”
Capita’s Partnership Lead, James Clark-Allan also emphasises the crucial role that genuine partnership continues to play. “Collaboration has been fundamental to the success of the JETS Scotland programme. It’s been a joy working with the Wise Group and all partners, simply because it’s clear that we all genuinely care and believe in the JETS programme. The corporate and personnel relationships between our organisations are open, honest and extremely strong because we’re all working with a shared purpose. As long as that continues, I’ve no doubt that JETS in Scotland will become even more successful as we proceed together”
This article was written by James Clark-Allen, Partnership Lead, Capita. Learn more about this author here.
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