10th May 2004, London... Civica plc, one of the UK’s most experienced providers of public sector consulting, software and services, has demonstrated its expertise in the e-commerce arena, ensuring that retail website M&M Sports is successfully handling fast growing on-line sales with a new hosted website solution. The Civica solution is fully integrated with IT company Sanderson’s MailBrain ordering service which is successfully controlling stock replenishment and orders in progress. With online sales significant and growing in 2003, M&M Sports opted to upgrade its IT infrastructure to ensure a resilient e-commerce capability in the run-up to the peak Christmas trading session. Internet sales have increased still further in 2004 since Civica’s solution was deployed. Through proactive management of the existing website infrastructure, Civica predicted performance issues over the festive period, owing to the site’s increasing popularity which could have led to lost online sales if not rectified quickly. Civica proposed a platform design which could cater for the high volumes of visitors and provided improved resilience. Once the solution was implemented using Civica’s secure data centre in Leeds, the website performed as expected and proved to be a great success. To further enhance performance, a 2MB communications line linking the Civica Datacentre to M&M Sports’ head office was installed, allowing the website to be updated more efficiently with stock levels and new products as they become available. Civica has provided a remote Mailsweeper service for the line, safeguarding it against spam and other unwanted email traffic. M&M Sports’ IT Manager Mike Pledge said, “We were looking to upgrade our infrastructure in the build up to Christmas and beyond, and Civica, who have provided communications and consultancy advice for some time, met our requirements very well. The solution is integrated with Sanderson’s MailBrain ordering system, ensuring that we have rising sales from a fully responsive website and back office order processing capability.” Note to Editors Products referenced in this document may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies and are hereby acknowledged. About Civica plc Civica (www.civica.co.uk) is one of the UK’s most experienced providers of consulting, software systems and managed services to the public sector. Supplying many organisations in the UK, Australia and the USA, including over 700 local authorities, the company has an 18-year history of delivering effective software solutions to local government, police, healthcare, criminal justice and education organisations. Civica Services Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary, is an approved Prime Contractor for software in the UK Government’s GCat procurement catalogue. The company employs approximately 450 people and has a recent track record of profits growth.