Innovate UK

Public beta of www.enterprise-europe.co.uk

2
Incomplete applications
1 SME, 1 large
1
Completed application
1 SME, 0 large
Published Thursday 7 December 2017
Deadline for asking questions Thursday 14 December 2017 at 11:59pm GMT
Closing date for applications Thursday 21 December 2017 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

Summary of the work Maintain a service aimed at innovative small businesses looking to grow. The service helps users find business partners, source funding, seek patent help and lots in-between. We need office hours support to fix hiccups and to continue to iterate the service.
Latest start date Monday 1 January 2018
Expected contract length 1 year
Location South West England
Organisation the work is for Innovate UK
Budget range Up to £90k

About the work

Why the work is being done Enterprise Europe network (EEN) is a European Commission (EC) programme to help innovative businesses grow. EEN is a bespoke digital and face-to-face service where Innovate UK lead 150 advisers who help clients find partners, source funding, seek patent help and lots in-between. EEN's current digital service - www.enterprise-europe.co.uk - recently passed beta service standard but needs maintaining/iterating.
Problem to be solved Proportionate to the (modest) size of the service, we’ll do ux / dev iterations, rounds of usability testing then releases onto production. We also need a 9-5, Monday-Friday service level agreement, to be on hand for any critical issues that need attention. Finally, the team will need to prepare and pass a Live service standard assessment.
Who the users are and what they need to do As an SME I want to connect with someone to discuss a project so I can reach other people or organisations to develop it further.

Epic needs:
*When I'm not confident about my knowledge in a particular area of business I want to GET ADVICE & SUPPORT so that I can grow my business internationally.
*When I'm trying to grow my business I want to FIND A PARTNER so that they can support the part of my business I cannot support and allow me to exploit international markets better
Early market engagement
Any work that’s already been done Interviewing/ux testing with 100 participants and surveying 2000 respondents has landed us at this audience segmentation (http://bit.ly/2BSRo6G) and this website: https://www.enterprise-europe.co.uk, the code for which is at https://github.com/InnovateUKGitHub.
Existing team Existing team is x1 service manager at Innovate UK. Rest of the live team roles (anticipated to be user researcher, visual design, front end, back end, web ops, tech arch, performance analyst, quality assurance, scrum master) will be filled by the supplier(s). As well as third parties the supplier might subcontract such as pen testing, accessibility audits, usability lab space.
Current phase Live

Work setup

Address where the work will take place At the supplier’s location where the team physically are based. Note, this must be within the South West of England (as defined here http://bit.ly/2jspQ3h) and no travel or subsistence costs can be incorporated for staff travelling to the location.
Working arrangements The service team must be based on site (limited working remotely / no traveling to site at the budget holder's expense) where the service manager will join 3/4 days per week when sprints are on.
Security clearance We won't be handling sensitive data, so each team member having 'Baseline Personnel Security Standard' is sufficient.

Additional information

Additional terms and conditions

Skills and experience

Buyers will use the essential and nice-to-have skills and experience to help them evaluate suppliers’ technical competence.

Essential skills and experience
  • Experience with UX and user testing (6.5% weighting)
  • Experience with on and off page SEO (6.5% weighting)
  • Experience with elastic search (6.5% weighting)
  • Experience offering website maintenance service level agreements (6.5% weighting)
  • Experience of 3rd party widgets (syndicating EEN content onto 3rd party websites) and the best practice that goes with it. (6.5% weighting)
  • Experience with Drupal 8 (3.25% weighting)
Nice-to-have skills and experience
  • Experience participating in a service assessment (6.5% weighting)
  • Experience identifying and mitigating risk to digital service (3.25%weighting)

How suppliers will be evaluated

How many suppliers to evaluate 5
Proposal criteria
  • The proposed approach and methodology (6.5% weighting)
  • The proposed seo recommendations and implementation, consider AMP for example (6.5% weighting)
  • Value for money of the proposal (6.5% weighting)
Cultural fit criteria
  • Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers (12.5% weighting)
  • Familiar with using Slack and Jira to work, rather than heavy documentation (2.5% weighting)
Payment approach Time and materials
Assessment methods Written proposal
Evaluation weighting

Technical competence

65%

Cultural fit

15%

Price

20%

Questions asked by suppliers

1. Can you please confirm the £90k budget is for the entirety of the expected contract, one year? Sorry, should have been clearer. It's £90k+VAT for 1 year
2. Is there flexibility in the requirement that the team is based in the South West? Afraid not, sorry
3. Where the questions are the same for the previous procurement (private beta) is it ok to submit the same answers? Well spotted. That's because the needs are largely similar.

For the 5 suppliers successful at shortlisting stage who are then invited to submit a written proposal, it's up to you whether you reuse previously submitted content or not. Regardless, follow the criteria wording carefully and the more recent and relevant examples, the better.