Placecube was launched in 2019 with the objective of providing the public sector with an affordable and accessible, digital platform to drive transformation. Through the reuse of high-quality design patterns, code, and services, which have been designed, proven and paid for by the sector, new customers are able to accelerate their own transformation and save time and money in doing so. These common components are referred to as Cubes.
Jason Fahy, Founder and CEO at Placecube told us “We wanted to build a company that understood the public sector, and which we could shape to become the supplier that we’d always wished we could buy from during our time working directly in the sector. A business that is open and collaborative, and where ‘digital transformation’ includes how technology is created and consumed.
Placecube is passionate about open source and doing the right thing. To us, it’s not enough to just be non-proprietary; as the public sector moves towards open standards, so too should suppliers. We’ve done just that, and our Digital Place product is changing the way digital services are built and consumed by our customers, because we’re disrupting both the traditional technology and the traditional commercial approach.”
Digital Place is the product of multiple co-creation projects between Placecube and the public sector. Work with many organisations such as Camden Council, Rugby Borough Council, Scottish Improvement Service, the Police Digital Service and UDITE has contributed to a well-designed, open-source ecosystem, boasting reusable components, immediately available to others through a single annual subscription. Digital Place has been built with the public sector, for the public sector. and provides a strategic alternative to digital projects that all too often start from scratch and cost far more than they need to.
Digital Place provides five distinct advantages.
- Confidence – in an open digital platform specifically co-created with and already proven in the public sector.
- Simplicity – all functionality in one platform, under one subscription, from one supplier.
- Affordability – the well-designed, reusable features that we continually co-create with our customers are automatically shared with all Digital Place subscribers. This helps avoid the burdensome time pressures, resource costs and compatibility concerns that would otherwise be a continuous burden for your team to manage.
- Acceleration – of your digital capability, with far more functionality than other solutions at this level of affordability.
- Control – of your Digital Platform, with full access to make changes and freedom to build out new digital solutions.
All of this is designed to make Digital Place a universally sustainable platform for Public Services. It provides a direct fit today, with the flexibility to adapt to your future requirements tomorrow.
Digital Place provides access to reusable digital components or ‘Cubes’. We recognise that although every organisation might build a different Digital Place, the components (Cubes) that make up that build are common. Quite literally, the common building blocks that the Government Digital Service Standard and Local Digital Declaration promotes.
The value in reuse is huge as it immediately benefits new customers through the reuse of designs that have been commissioned and tested by other councils, at no additional cost. This might mean no need for user research, design services or development, or it provides an opportunity to present pre-tested services to users for configuration and refinement and to focus user research and design on new services.
This not only helps to meet the ethos of the Digital Service Standard and Local Digital Declaration, but it also means subscribing customers will continue to enjoy a conveyor belt of new digital developments as other councils create new services, without changing your platform subscription. Subscribing customers accumulate increasing value and efficiencies, whilst the inhouse team focuses on organisational priorities. Recent projects include the co-creation of a Customer Contact Management application with Rugby Borough Council, to replace the incumbent CRM system, and the launch of a Case Management application with Camden Council.
Fahy said “It’s thrilling to see how our product is shaping and being shaped by the way that our customers digitally deliver their services. And we’re eager to demonstrate further reusability beyond our existing customers.”
Jason Fahy,
Founder at Placecube
