Web based Stakeholder consultation made simple!
eNgageSpace saves you time, effort and money
What is eNgagespace?
eNgageSpace is a unified set of web-based consultation tools provided on an intuitive platform that will dramatically reduce your costs, meet your stakeholder engagement commitments and help you make informed decisions.
eNgageSpace helps you to motivate stakeholders, listen to what is said, acknowledge feedback, analyse and interpret responses and respond to participants. You see better results faster, at lower cost, using fewer resources.
As a tool for online consultation, eNgageSpace enables total control over the whole consultation cycle from planning and response analysis to final presentation. Used by government and the private sector, eNgageSpace allows organisations to inform, engage, listen to and learn from both stakeholders and customers. It facilitates eDemocracy and democratic engagement in civil society and the workplace. It also embraces the best techniques of social networking and interactive social software, combining the strengths of online communities, market research and eConsultation.
No software required
As a hosted Software-as-a-Service solution, the eNgageSpace Consultation Platform can quickly be integrated and fully branded with your website to provide a consultation directory, search engine, stakeholder database, registration system and survey and analysis system with discussion forums and document management - all easily managed and empowering you to create and control all of your stakeholder engagement activity.
And the result?
You are far more likely to establish consensus, reach informed decisions and effect successful and sustainable change. What’s more, you will be demonstrating that the process by which such decisions were reached was correct, inclusive, clear, justifiable, balanced and fair.
Involving stakeholders meaningfully takes time and resource. Of course, knowledge has a cost; but as we all know, ignorance is much more expensive! Planning and clear thinking about information, processes, content, methods and outcomes are required. That's where eNgageSpace's structured yet flexible approach delivers.
Here's a summary of the business case:
Save on deployment time
Our experience is that what took days or weeks to organise, communicate and orchestrate with web and other colleagues will now take hours. When engagement is in stages (which it always is) and when you are managing multiple consultation events (which you always are), then efficiencies are rapidly realised with consequent financial savings.
Save on analysis time
Responses can be extremely time-consuming to analyse, interpret and report on. eNgageSpace solves this problem through its integrated survey and real-time statistical analysis tools, including text analysis in both questionnaires and discussion forums. Weeks or even months of effort can be saved at the ‘back end’.
Lower total cost of ownership
eNgageSpace is Software-as-a-Service, the pre-eminent model for software delivery – a hosted and managed solution with technical support, bandwidth, data back-up, database maintenance and the latest upgrades all provided as part of the package. There is no hardware to purchase, scale and maintain; no operating systems, database servers or application servers to install; no consultants and staff to manage it all; and no need for periodic upgrades.
Even more important, however, are the long-term savings. Research shows that two-thirds of IT time and budget is spent on maintaining infrastructure and dealing with updates. That's a thing of the past with the on-demand model. Hosted deployments also have fewer hidden costs, ranging from needs analyses to internal downtime. The total cost of ownership of a premise-based solution can be more than twice as high as that of an on-demand solution.
Better results
These follow since all concentration can be focused on the engagement process, not on technology and technical issues, resulting in lower cost per response.
Lower cost of stakeholder or target audience recruitment
Because eNgageSpace is a stakeholder database, participants can be selected and invited as appropriate, reducing recruitment costs. Development of stakeholder ePanels can reduce external market research costs significantly, while adding to your internal knowledge base.
Multi-departmental use
Since no technical expertise is needed, all departments can make use of eNgageSpace. Experience shows that the solution will be quickly and enthusiastically adopted with consequent increases in efficiency and effectiveness.
Fewer meetings, better internal communication
Collaborative tools like discussion forums are part of the functionality of eNgageSpace as is the capability to inform work groups and external stakeholders electronically.
Save on training costs
eNgageSpace is intuitive to use. While consultation may sometimes be involved, there is no need for it to be complicated! All training is facilitated online with helpdesk support, thus making more savings.
Better participant experience
Being a consultee can be a time-consuming and daunting task. Both deeper and wider inputs are derived from making the technology fit your business aims and target audience, making the task as easy, informed, satisfying and convenient as possible, while balancing the need for an informed and accountable process.
Decision support
eNgageSpace and consultation is ultimately a decision support process. Reaching right decisions more rapidly and in a sustainable manner in regard to their subsequent implementation is a highly desirable outcome with considerable financial and business implications.
Responding to consultation or policy initiatives
As an organisation you may also be a consultee; you will know how time-consuming that process can be. eNgageSpace's internal collaboration processes solve that problem, enabling efficient and timely responses.
Overview
The NHS, like all public bodies, has a formal duty (and a commonsense need) to listen to and learn from stakeholders – patients, the public, clinical staff and suppliers – in order to deliver world-class health care.
The challenge
Enabling serious and meaningful consultation with and actively listening to NHS stakeholders, both in general and within the commissioning process, is undoubtedly a complex management task. Creating compelling consultation, motivating response, and collating and presenting outputs and outcomes is both time and resource hungry. Yet it is an essential process if resources are to be optimally allocated. The need was therefore not for a simple online survey tool, but for a Consultation Management and Communications System, which could be used without involving expensive IT resources.
The solution
eNgageSpace enabled the creation, management and reporting on multiple and simultaneous consultations and also fewer formal conversations. It empowered staff to use the right tools and processes for a given audience. It enabled and encouraged colleagues’ contributions at the outset of a consultation process, while making it easy for participants to respond; something as ‘simple’ as having all consultations in a list/directory and in one easy-to-find place made a huge difference. eNgageSpace made the collation of response - both quantitative and qualitative - much easier and faster, especially at the ‘back-end’ analysis where so much time can be saved.
The benefits
Steve Shaffelburg, Public Health Development Manager, NHS Kensington & Chelsea:
“Engaging with patients and public is becoming increasingly important to delivering world-class health care. We quickly realised that business as usual – focus groups, face-to-face meetings, town hall meetings etc – was no longer enough.
“By augmenting our traditional engagement methods with eNgageSpace, our capacity and efficiency has increased at relatively minimal expense. eNgageSpace allows us to integrate and manage multiple consultations on multiple issues. Our response rates have been great and the analysis simple. It's made our lives a whole lot easier and our work a whole lot more effective."