London – 11 January, 2010 – Hitachi Consulting United Kingdom today announced that it has completed the delivery of a significant online portal project for Commissioning Support for London (CSL). The creation of the new secure online portal provides National Health Service (NHS) commissioners with access to a set of tools to help them monitor how their providers are performing. The Provider Performance Analytics (PPA) portal features a dashboard to highlight Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and enables Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and Sector Acute Commissioning Units (SACUs) to benchmark their performance on a pan-London level, whilst also providing the ability to drill down into specific data requirements.

CSL was launched on 1st April 2009 and brings together seven existing NHS organisations. It marks the start of a new pan-London clinical and business support service within the NHS and was set up as a responsive, flexible and cost-effective support centre whose deliverables work toward the needs of PCTs and SACUs.

The NHS is one of Microsoft’s single largest customer accounts in the United Kingdom and therefore the PPA portal was to be built on a Microsoft technology stack. Members of the PPA team responsible for commissioning the project had worked with Hitachi Consulting previously and because they required the first phase of the new product to be launched in extremely aggressive timescales – just three months they approached Hitachi Consulting UK’s Information Management Practice to design, develop and deliver the dashboard.

Christopher Johnston, Head of Provider Performance Analytics, CSL, commented, “We had an extremely aggressive delivery plan, but Hitachi Consulting UK hit the ground running. In absolutely no time at all they had started prototyping and were very quick to deliver a working dashboard for us to test.”

Hitachi Consulting UK designed a solution based on a Microsoft technology stack including SQL Server 2005, SharePoint 2007 and Performance Point 2007. Its consultants worked closely with the PPA team’s analysts to understand the KPIs and design a dashboard that would work to present accurate data in a logical and intuitive format.

To help develop and deliver the portal within such short timescales they used Hitachi Consulting’s KPI framework that comprises the following:

- A uniform KPI data structure – enabling KPI performance comparisons and rollups

- A KPI timeline –to analyse the temporary changes of KPI values in order to spot and predict patterns

- Standard KPI reporting and analytic views

- 360 degree KPI health cards

- Standardised (and catalogue driven) KPI data collection and processing templates

Hitachi Consulting’s consultants worked with members of the PPA team to develop a comprehensive training manual to assist them in rolling out the solution to the 31 PCTs in London. Since the initial launch a further 45 KPIs have been added to the site and Hitachi’s consultants continue to work with CSL to deliver up to 200 KPIs.

Christopher Johnston added, “We needed a technology partner that had specific Business Intelligence expertise. Hitachi Consulting UK deployed experienced consultants with the distinct capabilities we required – the ability to manage a huge amount of data and then present it on a highly intuitive dashboard. They were incredibly professional, flexible in their approach and very easy to work with. Hitachi Consulting’s consultants added a huge amount of value to the project and together we’ve delivered a product that everyone is very impressed with.”

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About Hitachi Consulting Corporation
As Hitachi, Ltd.'s (NYSE: HIT) global consulting company, with operations in the United States, Europe and Asia, Hitachi Consulting is a recognized leader in delivering proven business and IT strategies and solutions to Global 2000 companies across many industries. With a balanced view of strategy, people, process and technology, we work with companies to understand their unique business needs, and to develop and implement practical business strategies and technology solutions. From business strategy development through application deployment, our consultants are committed to helping clients quickly realize measurable business value and achieve sustainable ROI.

Hitachi Consulting's client base includes 25 percent of the Global 100 as well as many leading mid-market companies. We offer a client-focused, collaborative approach and transfer knowledge throughout each engagement.

For more information visit www.hitachiconsulting.com.

About Hitachi, Ltd.
Hitachi, Ltd., (NYSE: HIT / TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company with approximately 400,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2008 (ended March 31, 2009) consolidated revenues totaled 10,000 billion yen ($102.0 billion). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials, logistics and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com.

For further information, please contact:

Vanessa Land
Devonshire Marketing Tel: 0870 242 7469
Email: vanessa[at]devonshiremarketing[dot]com

Distributed on behalf of Hitachi Consulting UK by NeonDrum (http://www.neondrum.com)
Nicky Denovan
Tel: +44 7747 017654
nicky[at]neondrum[dot]com