Press Releases

London, UK, 8th October 2009 –  Sapient (NASDAQ: SAPE) today announced that it has been appointed by the British Council to redesign its Education UK website and provide supporting data services and collection as part of an initial two-year contract. The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. The Education UK website acts as the first port of call for international students considering coming to the UK to study, supporting the Prime Minister’s Initiative for International Education, which aims to increase the number of international students studying in the UK.

In a radical departure from the existing website, which acts primarily as a course finder, Sapient will help the British Council deliver a new site that provides prospective students with a comprehensive online resource. The site will promote the UK as cultural destination and also aims to become an essential companion for students, providing support throughout their entire transition process, culminating in their actual study in the UK. Ultimately, the site will become an interactive portal which enables students to engage with each other and to share feedback and advice relating to studying in the UK for future students.

The contract extends to 2011, including design and execution, followed by ongoing maintenance and potential future enhancement phases. During the first stage Sapient will collate data to populate the website, including information about the UK’s 600+ institutions, courses, scholarships and accommodation.  Sapient will also enhance the site’s design to attract a diverse, global audience of 18-25 year olds in the key markets of Asia-Pacific, the Gulf States, Brazil and Canada. 

Ginny Cobbett, Education UK E-Marketing Manager, British Council, added: “One of the aims of the Prime Minister’s Initiative is to increase the numbers of students choosing to study in the UK and the overhaul of the Education UK website will provide an exciting new dimension to our communications, engaging with young people from around the world. It was vital that we selected the right creative and technical partner who understood our vision and was able to deliver what we needed. With its strong track record and global experience, Sapient is the natural choice.”

Peter Ford, vice president and head of Sapient’s UK Public Sector Practice, commented: “Organisations increasingly recognise the need to think strategically about how they engage with youth audiences online to create ‘stickiness’ and encourage repeat visits. We are confident that our unique blend of creative and technical expertise will transform the Education UK site from being data-dependent to more experiential, ultimately providing a more rewarding experience for prospective students. Sapient has fantastic synergy with the British Council as we have a growing education practice and have also delivered complementary projects promoting Britain abroad.”

Education UK measures its success through key performance indicators linked to how many students are recruited to visit and study in the UK. In addition to providing more value to prospective and current students, the new website will help it benchmark against these indicators by tracking the number of online registrations, purpose for visit, courses studied etc. Understanding why students come to the UK and identifying possible future advocates for UK study is crucial since overseas students contribute an estimated £8.5 billion to the UK economy each year.
Sapient’s UK Public Sector Practice has successfully delivered business process and online services solutions to a number of leading public sector organisations in the UK, including the Department of Health, NHS Blood and Transplant, Royal Mail, Office of the e-Envoy, Directgov and NHS Choices. Recent new wins include clients in the education and social housing sectors.  

About Sapient
Sapient, a global services firm, operates two groups—Sapient Interactive and Sapient Consulting—that help clients compete, evolve and grow in an increasingly complex marketplace. Sapient Interactive provides brand and marketing strategy, award-winning creative work, web design and development and emerging media expertise. Sapient Consulting provides business and IT strategy, process and systems design, package implementation and custom development, as well as outsourcing services such as testing, maintenance and support.
Sapient’s passion for client success—evidenced by its ability to foster collaboration, drive innovation and solve challenging problems—is the subject of case studies on leadership and organizational behaviour used by MBA students at both Harvard and Yale. Leading clients, including BP, Essent Energie, Hilton International, Janus, Sony Electronics and Verizon, rely on the company’s unique approach to drive growth and market momentum. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Sapient operates across North America, Europe and India.
For more information, please visit www.sapient.com

Sapient is a registered service mark of Sapient Corporation  All other product and company names are trademarks of their respective companies.
 

About the British Council

• Celebrating 75 years in 2009, the British Council is the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations.

• We work in over 100 countries worldwide to build engagement and trust for the UK through the exchange of knowledge and ideas between people.

• We work in the arts, education, English, science, sport and governance and last year we engaged face to face with 13.2 million people and reached 221 million.

• We are a non-political organisation which operates at arm’s length from government.

• Out total turnover in 2008/9 was £645 million, of which our grant-in-aid from the British government was £209 million.

• For more information please contact James Rowe at the British Council Press Office on 020 7389 4939 / james.rowe@britishcouncil.org

• The Prime Minister’s Initiative (PMI) for International Education

• The Prime Minister’s Initiative (PMI) for International Education was launched in April 2006 with the aim of securing the UK’s position as a leader in international education, and sustaining the managed growth of the UK’s market position.

• The PMI is a five year strategy which sets out to achieve the following targets by 2011:

• An additional 100,000 international students in UK Higher and Further Education

• Achieve demonstrable improvements to student satisfaction ratings in the UK

• Achieve significant growth in the number of partnerships between the UK and other countries

• The further and higher education sectors and the English Language sector have come together with the Government and the British Council to provide a total of approximately £7 million p.a. to support the objectives of the PMI.

• The PMI is led by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). Partners involved in its management and delivery are British Council, UKvisas, UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), Scottish Executive, The Welsh Assembly Government, Department for Employment and Learning Northern Ireland (DELNI), Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), Universities UK, Association of Colleges (AoC), English UK, Independent Schools Council (ISC), and UKCOSA: The Council for International Education.
 

For more information, please visit: www.britishcouncil.org/eumd-pmi