Birmingham City University has announced a two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Programme with document-management solutions company Documotive.

The KTP will help will see the two organisations working together to develop a truly 'fit for purpose' customer management system for the Social Housing Sector.

Jonathan Holyhead of Documotive explains: "Documotive already provides a wide range of Document and Process management solutions that are designed to drive efficiencies and improve customer service by streamlining internal processes. The development of a customer management system is the next logical step in the company's development to pull together all of the customer information and to drive 'Customer Excellence' we have a hugely knowledgeable team that bring a vast amount of experience to the partnership."

The Division of Housing and Communities at Birmingham City University will lead on the KTP with support of the Faculty of Technology, Engineering and Environment (TEE).  Veronica Coatham, Head of Housing & Community Studies at Birmingham City University said: "This is a very exciting and innovative project bringing together a range of academics from the University with housing sector, customer insight, marketing and software development skills and experiences. We are very pleased to be working in partnership with Documotive given their rapidly developing business profile and ambitions to develop a new customer management system specifically for the social housing sector."

Documotive recognised some years ago that no one was delivering 'fit for purpose' Document and Process management solutions to the Social Housing sector and so our quest began to put that right. Today there are over 40 Housing organisations across the UK enjoying the benefits of our systems.

Suzanne Lazarus, Senior Lecturer at Birmingham City University commented: "Customer insight underpins excellence in customer service and a comprehensive knowledge of customer profiles, behaviours, attitudes and aspirations can vastly improve not only service provision but the essential core relationship the customer has with the organisation, therefore directly affecting their levels of satisfaction. This project aims to facilitate social housing organisations in gathering and interpreting this information but also in using it to build stronger customer relationships."

Jonathan continues: "Our objective is to continue to further develop our range of solutions in parallel with the development of our new customer management system so we can deliver Customer Excellence by utilising the very latest technology to drive customer choice and excellent service. Today people expect good customer service, choice, quality and value for money - These will be the core values at the heart of our development program. We have a number of excellent customer partners involved in steering the functionality and development of the system and, together with the support and backing of the University we will deliver a system that will set the standard for customer care and service."

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships is Europe's leading programme helping businesses to improve their competitiveness and productivity through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills that reside within the UK knowledge base.  A Technology Strategy Board programme.