In a press release today, Bromcom announced that they have been chosen to provide the Management Information System (MIS) for Wrexham County Borough Council’s 71 schools.
Cyngor Bwrdeistref Sirol Wrecsam yn dewis MIS yn y cwmwl Bromcom ar gyfer 71 o ysgolion i drawsnewid y gwaith o gyfathrebu a rheoli data.
The full press release can be seen here.
This is a very significant development in the MIS world in Wales, which has traditionally been a solid ‘SIMS’ country.
Whilst we had previously heard rumours that some of the Welsh authorities were looking into other MIS offerings, this is the first that we have seen actually make the change and we have to now ask ‘Is Wales open for (MIS) business?’
Several MIS providers have been exploring the potential in Wales, with some, such as IRIS, providing Welsh language versions of their software. However, the fact that we now have a Welsh County Borough Council choosing to switch all their schools to a competitor should certainly make all MIS providers sit up and take notice.
With around 1,500 schools and almost 500,000 pupils in Wales, this represents a big potential market for all software vendors, especially MIS providers, particularly since the Local Authorities here still, in practice, make the decisions about procurement for all their schools.
Is this the ‘crack in the armour’ of the ESS SIMS hold on the Welsh MIS market? We will have to wait and see, but it is certainly a significant development which we will be watching closely.
