Silverbear, the UK’s membership management system specialists, has demonstrated that there is no time like the present after helping NAHT, a longstanding trade union customer, avoid a major problem by reengineering its entire website and migrating it to DNN – in only a matter of weeks.
Whilst NAHT has benefitted from Silverbear’s membership CRM platform for almost six years, the trade union’s website had been hosted on another proprietary content management system (CMS) whose owners had taken the business decision to move away from CMS.
Initially, this led to limited support levels. However, the business owners announced earlier this year that support would entirely cease in June, which would have left NAHT without a functioning website and prevented its 45,000 members from accessing critical documents and support.
This also coincided with two major digital projects that NAHT had committed to undertake this summer, both of which would have been derailed had the trade union not found a solution in time.
Andy Bone, Head of IT at NAHT, explains: “We quickly found ourselves in a critical situation. Thankfully, as we were already with Silverbear for our membership management platform, they had a thorough understanding of our challenges and wasted no time in taking responsibility for copying our entire site over to DNN. A project on this scale would usually take months, yet they did it in weeks. Not only that, but the way they communicated and handled the project management aspect was faultless. At every step of the way, there was an honest and open two-way dialogue.”
Carole Murray, Account Director at Silverbear, adds: “Had NAHT not incorporated a solution by June, there would not have been a way in which to authenticate its users, the result of which would have led to a long period of downtime. By moving NAHT’s website to DNN in a very short timeframe, we’ve been able to guarantee continuity and implement a solution that not only effectively integrates with our membership platform, but also one that will meet NAHT’s requirements for many years to come. I’m delighted that the team was able to act so quickly and proud to continue our work with the trade union.”
As part of its wider digital strategy, NAHT now plans to build on the features available via DNN by making the site more intelligent.
Andy concludes: “I’m thrilled with the outcome. Silverbear has done an outstanding job. In fact, this was the smoothest and most painless web-based project that I’ve ever been involved with.”
For more information on NAHT visit www.naht.org.uk