Somerset County Council’s recent decision to migrate its on-site Confirm Asset Management Solution to a new cloud-based platform, is already paying dividends with the council reporting cost and resource savings, increased functionality and an enhanced user experience for council employees and its external community. Confirm, by Brightly (formerly Dude Solutions), is an innovative, cost-effective solution, developed to assist local authorities in valuing, managing and maintaining their assets. The system automates and streamlines processes to maximise operational efficiencies; minimising costs and facilitating informed decision making.

Previously hosted and supported by Somerset County Council’s own IT department, its new Confirm On-Demand virtual platform provides a 24/7 service and is now fully supported by Brightly’s expert team of IT engineers. This has freed up vital internal resources for redeployment to new projects as well as cost savings for the County Council.

Somerset County Council is a long-standing customer of Confirm, with the asset management software initially introduced into its Highways Department. At the time, it was looking for a robust solution to automate and streamline the formerly manual process of managing its 6,700km roads and associated highway assets, to keep the County Council’s £11bn economy and its 550,000 residents safe and on the move. 

Explains Tom Condick, Somerset County Council’s manager in charge of the Confirm solution, “Over the years, Confirm has enabled us to manage our roads and highway assets more effectively. Access to real time data has allowed the department to maximise asset performance and lifecycle, manage repairs and budgets more efficiently and plan more accurately for the future. So when presented with the option to upgrade to its On-Demand cloud-based solution, we could see it was a major opportunity to introduce additional efficiencies, while also gaining access to extra modules and functionality.”

Continues Condick, “The transition from our original on-site hosted system to the new cloud-based solution couldn’t have gone smoother. Any issues were quickly addressed by the Confirm professional services team within a bespoke test environment, in advance of our go-live date.  And, with the additional support of a dedicated project manager, we were expertly guided and supported throughout the whole process, enabling us to meet our deadline and deliver a seamless transition come switch-over day.”

Introduction of ‘Confirm On-Demand’ with its enhanced functionality has also seen the solution extend its benefits into other departments, in particular in the Streetworks Team, where they are using Confirm to strengthen the Department for Transport’s Street Manager solution. Residents have also benefited, with the introduction of a modern, simplified user-friendly interface via its website for easy reporting of potential highway hazards. This has allowed residents to take a more interactive and proactive approach within their own community.

Following the success of Confirm over the years, and its successful transition to the on-demand platform, Somerset County Council is continuing to modernise software and upgrade its asset management solution with the ongoing support of the Confirm team.

Josh Konynenburg, Strategic Accounts Director at Brightly concludes, “It’s both gratifying and exciting to see the difference Confirm has made in terms of automating and streamlining processes, increasing efficiencies and delivering real cost and resource savings for Somerset County Council. We are looking forward to continuing to work in partnership with Tom and his colleagues to explore new areas of expansion that will allow the council to achieve further cost and efficiency benefits.”