Transforming the Future - CIOB’s Digital Relaunch with Project Apollo

Organisation Overview

The Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) represents the science, ethics, and practice of built environments worldwide. Every action they take aims to enhance the quality of life for those who use and create the built environment. The CIOB plays a vital role in the construction industry's management, leadership, education, and development. The Institute provides guidance and education for its members as they embark on their careers. For policymakers, it sets the standards for all to follow. For the public, it fosters an environment where people can live and work safely, comfortably, and confidently.

Setting industry standards since 1834
From the initial gathering of Master Builders in 1834 to today’s board of trustees, the CIOB has consistently set and upheld the industry standards. From the Houses of Parliament in London to the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, their influence ensures safety for construction workers at heights and security for families in their first homes while guiding governments in planning the future of their cities.

Developing future experts
Through cutting-edge technology and time-honoured expertise, the CIOB trains future construction leaders. They provide resources ranging from practical tools and data to degree qualifications for those pursuing a long-term career. The Institute shapes workers and organisations that uphold industry standards, whether for individuals seeking formal recognition of their experience or for those looking to be known for trust, knowledge, and reputation as they plan lasting environments.

Sustaining our world today and tomorrow
The CIOB is ready to respond, learn, and lead in a constantly evolving world. They adapt to changes to protect what matters most: people, heritage, and the wider environment. Their commitment extends to supporting the mental health of industry colleagues, preserving the built history of societies, and safeguarding the planet we all call home.

Bluelight’s consultants have demonstrated an excellent understanding of CIOB’s needs and have injected life and excitement into the project.

Joanna Quirk

Chief Operations Officer

CIOB

Strategic Goals

The CIOB’s current five-year corporate plan, running from 2023-2028, aims to make modern professionalism in construction management widely aspired to and increasingly a reality across the industry. The Institute’s new CRM, portal and Digital Transformation project was seen as a critical enabler to help deliver this.

The high-level ambitions of the Corporate Plan are as follows:-

To demonstrate the clear financial and social benefits of modern professionalism for those involved in the construction process's commissioning, management and delivery.
To increase the number of clients valuing CIOB membership, both individual and corporate, reflecting this in procurement practices.
To deliver a modern experience to all stakeholders with whom CIOB engages.

To support this, the Institute embarked upon a procurement exercise for a new high-quality CRM and portal that would deliver a modern experience to all of its stakeholders.

In specific terms for the project, the goals of implementing a new digital solution were to:

Deliver an excellent member and user experience by providing seamless access to personalised resources
Deliver Process efficiencies
Use out-of-the-box solutions where possible
Finding a supplier who could be a long-term trusted partner

The Process

In April 2023, CIOB went to tender for a new CRM and integrated portal.

The implementation following discovery started in January 2024, and go-live was achieved at the end of October. For a project of this size, this was a huge undertaking, but all suppliers involved and the Institution’s well-resourced and flexible project team made this eminently achievable. Their internal name for the project was Project Apollo.

Bluelight is a fantastic bunch!
It has been a real pleasure working with them all – awesome!

Tillat Kadri

Data and CRM Operations Manager

CIOB

The Approach

The project was incredibly ambitious in overhauling core legacy CIOB systems and required a cohesive and highly collaborative approach involving multiple partners working with the core project team at CIOB. CIOB understood the importance of providing a multi-skilled team to support the organisation with business readiness and deliver what the technology partners needed to enable them to be successful. In recognition of this, they established a dedicated internal project team supported by Intercloud9, a specialist consultancy practice working with membership organisations to close the gap between business and technology.

Bluelight worked hard with CIOB to create an aligned implementation plan. This “one team” approach invited open and transparent communication through multiple platforms and allowed project and technical professionals to collaborate in real-time and find responsive solutions quickly.

The level of customer engagement with the project helped elevate Bluelight's ability to provide specific and greatly improved processes across all involved business areas. Right throughout the project, CIOB representatives remained open to change and flexible, but they were also unafraid of raising items promptly and feeding back to Bluelight consultants, which aided with the speed and accuracy of delivery.

The Outcome

The most important outcome was, of course, that the solution went live on plan.

CIOB had made a number of contingency options available in their planning due to the criticality of going live by the end of October, when the bulk of their membership renewals needed to be completed. Still, none of these contingency plans were required.

Alongside delivering a far better digital technology solution to CIOB, there were other benefits to CIOB’s IT estate, namely:

Efficient Data Migration: Successfully migrated a substantial volume of data to SharePoint, reducing storage costs.
Effective User Training: Provided necessary training and support, ensuring users were comfortable with the new system
Delivery of Standard Functionality: BlueCRM was already a feature-rich standard product, allowing CIOB to achieve this goal and facilitating easier support and maintenance of the solution by the users and the technology partner.

How can we help you?

Fill out the form below, and we will contact you.