Questacon Business Systems Uplift

⁠⁠⁠Key problem/s

Questacon seeks the capability of a core business system uplift that addresses some core business requirements. The business system supports the business functions of retail, ticketing, memberships, outreach tour management, and stakeholder management, including communication.

Questacon is seeking information about:

• Point-of-sale systems that can support integration with an online ticket sales platform, inventory management and reporting, and stakeholder database management.
• External communications systems.
• Systems for national outreach programs and tour planning.

Centralised secure data management is a high priority. Ideally, data from all Questacon applications should be available for query and reporting from a single data source.

The key business requirements include:

• Extending the visitor experience within and beyond the Centre through opt-in communications.
• A single online account where customers can purchase/manage tickets, memberships and online.
• Streamlined and enhanced reporting and analytics capabilities.
• Accessible interfaces for customers and staff, which meet WCAG 2.0AA standards and aim to meet 2.1AA standards, where possible.

The users and their needs

Questacon is Australia’s National Science and Technology Centre.

Its mission is to “excite and motivate people through inspirational learning experiences” and its vision is “a better future for all Australians through engagement with science, technology and innovation”.

Questacon achieves this through:

• Hands-on science engagement at its two Centres (Parkes and Deakin, Canberra)
• STEM programs delivered across regional Australia to both students and educators.
• Sharing exhibitions with other cultural institutions across Australia

Full delivery of Questacon’s mission relies on having efficient and effective business systems that enable the following:

• Ticketing (on-site and online)
• Retail (on-site and online)
• Memberships (on-site and online)
• Event coordination
• Outreach tour management
• External communication and engagement channels
• Stakeholder and customer management and
• Transparent communication with stakeholders
• Workforce management
• Data analysis and reporting
• Knowledge management
• Information management

Work already done.

Discovery and Concept phases have been completed, which produced:

• A refined set of business requirements (Appendix A) for the desired capabilities.
• A target state architecture (Appendix B), which has abstracted business systems. Each business system surrounded by a solid line is to be addressed by vendors. Questacon has a preference for a "core system" which can meet many of the specified business systems from a single application. Consideration will also be given to solutions with multiple applications that are able to integrate via plug-ins or APIs to other business systems.
• A set of experience maps that illustrate the target state experience for customers, stakeholders and Questacon staff (Appendix C, Appendix D, Appendix E)

Technical/business constraints

Yes - the system should be delivered on a cloud platform with a preference for vendor-hosting.

There are limited resources for ongoing product configuration by Questacon staff. The vendor should indicate their ongoing availability for updates to the configuration of their applications.