Awarded to Corporate Project Solutions

Start date: Wednesday 17 April 2019
Value: £1,000,000
Company size: SME

Falmouth University & FXPlus

Microsoft365 Transformation Partner

19 Incomplete applications

15 SME, 4 large

7 Completed applications

7 SME, 0 large

• Published: Friday 18 January 2019
• Deadline for asking questions: Friday 25 January 2019 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Friday 1 February 2019 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: Falmouth University and its delivery partner FXPlus have a requirement for a single Microsoft Gold partner to provide a large-scale programme of works around the migration of current on-premise services to Microsoft365. The Microsoft Gold Partner should have expertise in planning, user adoption and business change management.
• Latest start date: Friday 29 March 2019
• Expected contract length: 2 years (+2 year)
• Location: South West England
• Organisation the work is for: Falmouth University & FXPlus
• Budget range: The budget range for year 1 of the programme is between £500,000 to £1,000,000 which been signed off by the business. ; ; Year 2 (+2 Year) will be subject to the decision made at business and programme boards.

About the work

• Why the work is being done: Falmouth University and FXPlus are on a digital journey to transform working practices to increase efficiency and effectiveness, reduce duplication of effort and manual processing through common platforms, improved communications, workflow and automation. The solutions will enable staff to work in a more flexible way, allowing staff to be focused on value-added activities. With significant growth forecast for Falmouth University the ability to facilitate internal and external collaboration with partners will be a key deliverable in supporting the Falmouth University 2030 Strategy.; ; Emerging Priorities:; ; - Communication; Email, Teams/Yammer/SharePoint; ; - Content; OneDrive, SharePoint, Intranet; ; - Collaboration; MS Teams, SharePoint, Project Online
• Problem to be solved: To reduce the complexity of the technical estate, improve reliability and use Microsoft expertise to deliver a robust, reliable service, supporting open innovation, business change and adoption. Also, resolving key business challenges, increase working efficiencies, reduce duplication and breaking down silos.; ; The problem should be addressed by utilising Microsoft365, Azure and the wider Microsoft technology and innovation stacks including Dynamics365 and Project Online where appropriate.
• Who the users are and what they need to do: At the highest level the users will be our stakeholders:; ; * Falmouth University Staff (Professional Services and Academics); ; * Falmouth University Students; ; * FX Plus Staff; ; * FXU (Student Union); ; * Falmouth University Collaborative Partners; ; * University of Exeter (Staff on Penryn Campus); ; * Business to Business (B2B); ; Create, Collaborate, Share and Communicate
• Early market engagement: Third-party supplier was engaged to complete work on an organisational vision and strategy programme. This identified key areas and benefits which we will require the partner to help develop and realise work packages to achieve:; ; Platform governance; Stable platform; Reduced delivery cost through re-use; Reduced effort for adoption and training; ; Systems consolidation; Quicker, cheaper implementation of common capabilities; Increased integration; Improved reporting based on holistic data sets; Reduced TCO; ; Communication channels; Increased access to communications through multiple and ; effective channels; Increased confidence that audiences are informed; ; Document management; Less time spent to find content; Effective enforcement and monitoring of governance policies; Demonstrable compliance; Single source of truth; ; Collaboration tools; Increased ability to collaborate with internal users and external ; partners; Increased set of capabilities including messaging, task planning ; and content management; Audit log capabilities; Additional security applied based on device compliance, location or ; content; ; Data sharing; Easier to share content and control access; Confidence that the recipient will have access; Reduced duplication; ; Content governance; Increased ability to use tools to find and investigate content like ; FOI or SAR.; Increased return on investment for licences and infrastructure; ; Project Management; Improved management processes for projects; Reporting on project progress, cost, risks and issues
• Any work that’s already been done: A programme has been established; key principles and priorities have been identified through a vision and strategy phase.; ; An Office365 tenant exists with around 18000 accounts; ADFS is in place but not resilient. Falmouth University have already migrated their intranet to SharePoint online and are heavy users of OneDrive. Teams has a lot of use but not in a structured way. An AD audit via Premiere support was completed which has produced a work package that needs to be addressed before any phase of adoption.
• Existing team: The supplier will work with a blended multi-disciplined transformation team which includes but is not limited to:; ; Programme Sponsor; ; Programme Manager (Not yet recruited) Project Managers,; ; Communication Leads; ; FX Plus Lead/sponsor; ; Falmouth University Lead/Sponsor; ; Infrastructure Engineers,; ; Service Desk Technicians; ; SharePoint Admin/Developers; ; Software Trainers; ; End users (including, Service Staff, Office Staff and Academic Staff); ; Additionally, the Partner will be required to work with any of Falmouth University and FXPlus’s existing incumbent partners/suppliers.
• Current phase: Discovery

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: Main Site; ; Falmouth University Penryn Campus, Treliever Road, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE, also; ; FX Plus is located at the Penryn Campus; ; Secondary Site; ; Falmouth University also has a second Campus at Wood Lane, Falmouth; ; Cornwall TR11 4RH
• Working arrangements: We wish to form a true Partnership approach, delivering in a collaborative way.; ; You will be expected to work openly and collaboratively with Falmouth University, FXPlus and partners.; ; We will require our partner to work alongside the Falmouth University and FXPlus Programme team and it's current and future suppliers/partners.; ; To promote quick collaboration and team interaction across the varied services.; ; Falmouth University and FXPlus has a flexible working policy however the expectation is that the team will attend the office location(s) when business requirements dictate
• Security clearance: Knowledge of cyber essentials.

Additional information

• Additional terms and conditions: It is anticipated that additional Falmouth University and FXPlus specific Terms and Conditions will be added to the standard call off contract. Full details of any such additions will be included within the next phase.; ; Please provide, rate card and travel & subsistence expenses.

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:
  • Demonstrate your approach and experience in Microsoft tenancy redesign/configuration, inline with Microsoft and sector best practice. Recognising the need for two entities to be serviced by the resulting design;
  • Demonstrate your experience of delivering (with direct access and successful utilisation of Microsoft Fast track) an Exchange2010, SharePoint2010, DFS and Skype4Business migration, from on-premise, to the Microsoft365 tenancy;
  • Describe how you design for resilience and ensure that business continuity is considered at each phase of design;
  • Demonstrate your approach of developing and transforming multiple existing SharePoint based intranets, either already hosted in Microsoft 365 or as part of the migration.
  • Detail how you ensure the design and delivery of an engaging intranet solution, better content control and document governance;
  • Demonstrate your approach and experience of Azure implementation for; Identity management and PaaS/IaaS capabilities and your experience of migrating legacy on-premise systems;
  • Demonstrate your experience in the design and integration of Microsoft technical/cyber controls deployment, including but not limited to; mobile device management by using Intune or Office365 MDM and ATP;
  • Explain your experience in leading and/or managing projects concerned with Microsoft365 (especially MSTeams,SharePoint,Intune,PowerApps,PowerBI,Project) including aspects of user adoption, value realisation, setting out your role and that of the client
  • Outline your approach establishing and supporting the organisations to identify opportunities to exploit the adoption of the Microsoft365 Platform ensuring maximum organisational, financial value and/or cost savings are achievable;
  • State your experience/approach to supporting diverse stakeholder groups across aligned but distinctive organisations, in the context of, Public Sector customers. How you deliver successful transformation agendas through adopting Microsoft365.
  • Demonstrate your approach to implementing Project Online and overarching governance and project framework to enhance reporting and dashboards;
  • Explain your capabilities and approach to delivering ongoing technical support and training to the businesses within a true partnership model, along with any client-side dependencies;
  • Setout your approach to organisational improvement and Change Management, how it delivers value through user adoption of new technology (Microsoft365) utilising enhanced collaboration and increased productivity.
  • Setout your vision of a business communication strategy and how you have helped shape an organisation realisation of improved collaboration and communication through the guided introduction of Microsoft365
  • Demonstrate your experience of supporting the creation of a customer experience platform using Dynamics365 as the foundation, providing the presentation or migration of business systems within the University Sector;
  • Demonstrate your experience of supporting the student recruitment process using Microsoft Dynamics365 as the foundation;
  • Experience of implementing Edison365 or proven alternative solution set based on Project Online, to deliver a platform for open collaboration, idea generation and project delivery. With enterprise reporting/dashboard capabilities;
  • Detail your overall approach to mobilisation and provide details of assured capacity to mobilise during March 2019;
  • Outline your approach and capability to reviewing and managing established licensing structures and SKU optimisation. Focusing on reducing/controlling current and future license requirements.
  • Describe what differentiates you as an Gold partner in your ability to deliver value to the Universities and FXPlus in meeting the requirements set out above.
• Nice-to-have skills and experience:
  • Demonstrable approach and evidenced outcome of continual horizon scanning and the resultant use of new technologies to innovate both within your own organisation and through guidance to your clients;
  • Demonstrate strong skill sets in older Microsoft technologies such as Exchange 2010 & SharePoint 2010;
  • Demonstrable knowledge of configuring and connecting Azure VPN and expressway for Higher Education customers;
  • Set out approach and experience in establishing and maintaining training content and delivery programmes for all users with various skill levels to ensure adoption and enhanced, relevant, digital skills
  • Outline what a true partnership means to your organisation within a programme of multiple stakeholders and providers;

How suppliers will be evaluated

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 4
• Proposal criteria: Significance and Quality of evidence supplied to meet the “Essential Skills and Experience” and “Nice-to-have skills and experience”
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • Describe your fit to a teaching and research focused higher educational culture;
  • Describe how you respond to stakeholders who on one side come from a very creative and visual background and on the other very process and scientific background;
  • What does true partnership mean to you within a programme of multiple stakeholders and providers;
• Payment approach: Time and materials
• Assessment methods:
  • Written proposal
  • Case study
  • Work history
  • Reference
  • Presentation
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  55%

  Cultural fit

  20%

  Price

  25%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. Q: Can you please clarify whether we would be excluded or significantly marked down for not including some elements within the scope of the response, such as Dynamics 365 or Project Online? We have long standing relationships with specilists partners in these areas and would look to leverage these relationships to meet your requirements.: A: The most optimal solution would be a single supplier with all the skills sets, however we would not preclude the possibility of a vendor providing a bid that included a partnership arrangement to deliver the relevant outcome as long as the control, communications and/or potential legal issues are dealt with contractually via a single vendor. This will be a consideration during the shortlisting of vendors.
• 2. Could you please advise if you are already working with a Microsoft Gold Partner and if so, will they be bidding for this opportunity?: We did engage with a Microsoft Gold Partner to help us develop our Vision & Strategy document, that will be shared with the successful bidder. However we are not currently working with that or any other Microsoft Gold Partner. The tender is open to all companies within the digital marketplace to apply and all responses and scoring will not be influenced by the pervious package of work.
• 3. Could you please clarify what Office 365 / Microsoft 365 licencing you plan to utilise?: We are using a number of different licencing plans including A1+, A3, A5, Project Professional and PowerBI Pro. We will expect the partner to ratify and help design and develop the most efficient licensing structure
• 4. Will partners with previous experience in the higher education sector be preferred over those with experience mostly in the corporate sector?: The partner with previous HE experience may score higher in some areas during shortlisting due to the experience in our sector of business, but we are not excluding other sectors of experience.