St Vincent de Paul Society
Case Study
The Australian Website for the St Vincent de Paul Society (St. Vinnies) has been acknowledged as the Society’s best website worldwide. This acknowledgement clearly justifies the faith the Australian Committee had last year when choosing TSA Corporation, a local WA management and IT consulting firm, to redesign the national website for St Vinnies and provide on-going support and maintenance for the site from a Perth base. Some considered this almost a brave decision 12 months ago, having chosen not only a new player in the market, but a Perth-based firm to replace a national and global firm.
The overall approach backed by a proven management team was compelling enough to turn the decision TSA’s way. Considering the recent acknowledgement that reinforces the overall success of the three year contract awarded last year, the decision appears well made. The local St Vinnies’, chief financial & technology Officer Brian Niedzwiecki has assumed responsibility as the lead Co-ordinator within the national web services committee. He believes the consultative approach adopted by TSA proved to be a winner. Lead by senior business consultants, supported by strong technical and development skills (including system integration, database and graphic design capability) when combined with TSA’s ease in seamlessly sourcing any complementary skill sets, that didn’t exist within their permanent team during their growth period, has been fundamental to the success of the contract.
Mr Niedzwiecki confirms that it has been enlightening to see that TSA have not only honoured and exceeded all commitments, but had even contributed to areas that they hadn’t been funded for. These commitments included a fundamental approach by TSA that acknowledged the good work St Vinnies had done for the community. As a gratitude payment and assistance to St Vinnies’ ongoing good work for the community, TSA had agreed to provide a flexible delivery model that capped fees while still providing access to senior level management consultants not typically made available for our type of projects.
During the past 12 months St Vinnies have seen TSA make many commercial concessions in the interests of providing a true strategic partnering service to the Not For Profit sector in a manner that has not only been affordable, but has improved service levels and contained costs. TSA Corporation now provides a strategic sourcing solution to St Vinnies in Western Australia that include infrastructure and application environments. TSA are currently being considered to provide similar services to other states, based on the success of their delivery and cost model in WA. Mr Niedzwiecki attributes TSA’s success to the development of a practical business model that focuses on keeping overheads low, staff mentoring, the development and honouring of partnering and client alliances in a manner that strives to add value and cement long-term relationships. In Mr Niedzwiecki’s own words, “It is done in a manner that sometimes appears almost non-commercial to the traditional industry approach, but is based on a sound cost recovery model that is much more strategic and not purely focused on huge short term profit margins”.
TSA directors, Greg Davidson and Con Polkinghorne, believe that foresight comes from nearly three decades of individual business and IT industry experience they have gained while leading teams within the big five consulting and tier one service vendor space.
The St. Vinnies website can be found online at: http://www.vinnies.org.au/