Fashion Retail Academy gets new finance system to aid corporate growth
Printer friendly
The high profile training facility set up to prepare students to work in the fast-paced fashion retail industry was opened in September 2005 with a joint fund of £20m donated by the Government, and BHS and Arcadia owner Sir Philip Green.
The Deputy Head of the Academy, Utkal Joshi, explains their selection decision, 'The Fashion Retail Academy needed to move from an operation based on spreadsheets to a professional automated financial system that would fulfil the needs of a modern specialist training organisation such as ourselves. We drew up a shortlist of three vendors, all of which were competent in their basic financial processing, however we selected bluQube over the rest because overall it offered the best value for money, in terms of functionality and price. We liked the user-interface that was very intuitive and easy to use. It also demonstrated superior reporting capabilities, which would allow data to be downloaded directly from Excel and enable The Fashion Retail Academy to customise reports for each department.'
The new system will enable The Fashion Retail Academy to expand its financial operation from its existing 3 users, to 12 non-financial users as well as give it options for the future such as e-procurement and integration with the student records system.
He continued, 'At the moment we operate a centralised accounts function, however it is our intention to devolve some of this activity directly to the our budget holders. With its self-service accounting features, bluQube will support this strategy.'
Joshi concludes, 'The system has met my expectations and delivered on all its promises. The vendor, Symmetry, recognised that unlike many other training institutions, our users were new to a software-based financial system and took the time to ensure our staff were comfortable with using new technology.'
The Fashion Retail Academy was opened in September 2005 and provides places for 200 students aged between 16 and 19 to study for a Diploma in Fashion Retail (levels 2 and 3). The Fashion Retail Academy is jointly funded by a Government grant, and by Sir Philip Green, owner of BHS and Arcadia group. The Fashion Retail Academy is located on Gresse Street, near Oxford Street in Central London.
Related links to this article:
The Fashion Retail Academy
bluQube
Enter the 2007 e-Government National Awards
If you're proud of your organisation's web & e-Government services, its ICT project success, the make sure you are nominated, for free, in the e-Government National Awards 2007. Nominations run from 2nd July to 5th October, in 11 categories recognising this year's "best of the best strategies, achievements, teams and individuals in UK e-Government.
Platinum sponsor is KPMG..
The Awards are supported by the Government Chief Information Officer (Cabinet Office), the Office of Government Commerce, the Society of Information Technology Management (Socitm), and SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers).
- Login or Register to comment
- Add to a social bookmarking site
The Dispatch Box: A portfolio management approach to reducing the public sector deficit
Chris Mills, partner in PIPC’s Portfolio Management Practice, discusses how government can strike the right balance between cutting deeply and protecting critical investments...
"Research has repeatedly shown that over 50% of potential value from project investments is wasted year after year, through a combination of poor selection and sub-optimal execution.Clearly we can no longer afford such waste but getting the balance right between cutting deeply and protecting critical investments will be a major challenge for whichever government is in power after the election."
"So, what’s the answer?" Read more
Frontline Club: Digital Election 2010
A panel discussion on the importance of social media in determining the outcome of the forthcoming general election, recorded at the Frontline Club in London.