SITUATION:
In, 2003 The Center for American Progress (CAP) was just starting out as a progressive policy think tank. The Center was experiencing phenomenal growth in just a few short months and needed a larger headquarters. In an effort to compete with rival, conservative groups, the Center turned to QRS for help building a state of the art conference facility to host events and to support an aggressive media strategy.

APPROACH:
In January 2004, QRS met with the Center's communications and events teams to establish the business requirements for a new multi-function media facility. In addition, QRS met with the architects and engineers involved in the new project to evaluate space. QRS also reviewed the capabilities of other organizations like the Center for American Progress in order to provide the Center with a thorough understanding of the "competition" including the Carnegie Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and The Kaiser Family Foundation.

QRS produced a business requirements document that included a comprehensive review of the Center's existing capabilities for audiovisual presentation systems, radio production, and television production. In the BRD, QRS provided the Center with recommendations for building new facilities within their new office space.

During the BRD process, QRS reviewed the techincial facilities of Reuters News Service - a tenant in the same office building of the Center - located five floors below. Due to the proximity of Reuters, QRS advised the Center to appropriate more funds for a larger radio studio and AV systems, rather than provisioning for and building a small television studio. QRS proposed a fiber path to Reuters from the Center's conference space so that if they so desired, they could produce a single camera live-shot from the Center's Headquarter but utilize some of the exsisitng broadcast infrastructure Reuters had already installed.

After their review of QRS' documentation, the Center hired QRS to manage the implementation of the QRS blueprints.

QRS created scopes of work for the Center for issuance to vendors to solicit bids for the design and construction of radio and AV systems and facilities. QRS worked with the construction team during the build-out of the spaces to ensure that adequate provisioning for electrical, HVAC, and cable paths were installed.

QRS procured all of the equipment, managed the installationof the Center's AV systems and fiber path to Reuters and radio systems - QRS provided substantial cost savings by managing the purchasing and installation.

QRS conducted all testing and evaluation of the systems to ensure that they met with acceptable industry standards.

RESULT:
The Center now has event and production capabilities that rival any of it's competitors, and a state-of-the-art communications systems to support the Center's strategic mission.