The Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) is a professional organisation providing member services and advocacy for those involved in and delivering public works and engineering services to the community in both Australia and New Zealand. The organisation is a federated body comprising an Australasia central body and seven divisions with more than 3,300 members from a wide range of professions, including engineers, technicians, public works directors, contractors, consultants, managers, and other technical staff.
“Our plan wasn't about just having a new database or a new website. It was a strategy that aimed to completely rebuild and fully integrate our business systems. iMIS is the backbone of all our work.”
Each division of the IPWEA had its own member database that was updated manually. Contact information wasn’t consistent across the databases, duplication was common, communication with members across divisions was difficult, and there was no single location to confirm IPWEA membership in real time.
The organisation wanted to integrate its financial, marketing and business systems and improve communications with its members/contacts. As part of the rebuild of its business systems, the IPWEA needed to consolidate the siloed databases, improve its online presence, and develop a professional networking platform.
The IPWEA had used iMIS on a national level for a number of years and needed to integrate its seven division systems into one single solution. With iMIS and other 3rd party providers, the IPWEA was able to integrate their website, databases, email marketing, orders, event registration, microsites, discussion forums, and online communities. Some offerings were provided as an opt-in service to divisions.
IPWEA was able to completely rebuild and integrate their systems and iMIS was central to their efforts. The overall system has helped the IPWEA provide more consistent messaging/communications to members as well as provide real-time database integration to a new interactive website with user-generated content management facilities, networking opportunities, and more.
IPWEA Australasia runs all its transactions and invoicing through iMIS, including membership fees of most divisions, event and workshop registrations, and back-office subscription and bookstore purchases. This centralised system ensures their data is consistently up-to-date. The new business systems are helping the IPWEA add capacity within the organisation enabling them to offer opt-in business services to their divisions.
The IPWEA believes iMIS is built to accommodate its future membership structures and the integrated systems in place allow them to continually increase and improve engagement with their members and the broader public works industry.