Awarded to IBM United Kingdom Ltd

Start date: Monday 15 July 2019
Value: £1,430,000
Company size: large

Intellectual Property Office

Strategic Delivery Partner (Discovery & Alpha)

23 Incomplete applications

16 SME, 7 large

24 Completed applications

13 SME, 11 large

• Published: Thursday 16 May 2019
• Deadline for asking questions: Thursday 23 May 2019 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Thursday 30 May 2019 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: IPO holds its customer records in multiple legacy systems and within those systems the records are duplicated and held against individual IP rights. IPO require the development of a centralised, IPO wide, Single Customer Record with self-serve capability via a secure User Account Management Service to provide the Change-My-Details service.
• Latest start date: Monday 1 July 2019
• Expected contract length: 5 months
• Location: Wales
• Organisation the work is for: Intellectual Property Office
• Budget range: Maximum spend of £2.5m

About the work

• Why the work is being done: The IPO is transitioning from a paper based, case-centric organisation to a digital, customer-centric way of working. Core to IPO's successful transformation is the development of a single, secure, IPO wide, user account with self-serve capability. The first of several planned services to utilise this capability is "Change My Details" which will allow IPO customers and their agents to update certain details held on the IPO registers. We require a delivery partner for the Discovery & Alpha phases of this project. These phases will be delivered through a series of iterative and incremental statements of work.
• Problem to be solved: IPO currently holds its customer records in multiple legacy systems. Within those systems records are often duplicated as they are held against individual IP rights and not centrally. Changes made by a Customer, Agent or Representative require time consuming, repetitive and often paper based transactions and processes and data quality is compromised. The next step in successfully transforming the estate is to implement a Single Customer Record, accessed via a secured and extensible User Account Management Service through which our Customers and their Agents can change/update their details (Change My Details).
• Who the users are and what they need to do: Our users are companies and individual IP rights holders and the agents/representative who work on their behalf. Users need to be able to change their IP ownership, address and agent details both as single transactions and as bulk updates. These updates need to happen once and apply to all instances of a users data across the estate and not multiple times for each right held. Civil Servants at the IPO are also users and they require a single source of the truth for IPO customer data with a simplified and more efficient way to manage changes.
• Early market engagement: N/A
• Any work that’s already been done: A project to deliver the standalone Change My Details service has been running internally and has captured user journeys and user needs along with prototypes. However, work to date has not considered the requirements in the context of a broader User Acount Management Service or a Single Customer Record. ; We have also engaged a supplier who has produced conceptual and logical data models for the future of IPO that will inform the data structure and design of this work. Access to this information will be made available to the winning supplier.
• Existing team: The supplier will be working with IPO staff including the existing data management team, architecture team, project team and existing suppliers.
• Current phase: Discovery

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: Intellectual Property Office, Cardiff Road, Newport, NP10 8QQ
• Working arrangements: Supplier resources will work as part of a blended delivery team, co-located with our team in Newport, Monday-Friday usual office hours. More flexibility may be arranged by mutual agreement after an initial onboarding process. We expect team(s) to reflect the roles and capabilities listed in the Essential Skills section. Team(s) will work in the Agile delivery methodology, or 'Waterfall', or in a hybrid of both disciplines.
• Security clearance: Given the nature of the work, SC clearance is required for all Consultants. IPO is able to support the SC Clearance process if necessary.

Additional information

• Additional terms and conditions: N/A

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 of managing and delivering agile based discovery and alpha outcomes to support complex transformation projects in government organisations.
  • Experience of designing the organisational change required for successful digital transformation, including business process re-engineering.
  • Experience in successfully designing and developing reusable enterprise level services using pragmatic Agile methodologies and practices.
  • Experience in modern approaches to solving data quality and consistency issues with multiple legacy data sources.
  • Experience shifting centricity of an organisation's data model (e.g. product-focused to customer focused).
  • Experience working on digital transformation programmes with many dependencies and integrations with backend and legacy applications.
  • Experience of successfully delivering a Customer facing IDaaS with fine grained access control in a large or complex organisation.
  • Experience of designing and developing modern RESTful API's for public and internal consumption off legacy and new data sources.
  • Experience using the GDS Design Principles and Digital Service Standard to deliver public facing digital services.
  • Experience designing digital services that comply with Government security guidelines.
  • Experience in designing and delivering Government registers using a Microservices architecture.
  • Experience in designing user account management systems using COTS.
  • Experience of building capability in client departments and leaving a self-sufficient, sustainable internal capability.
• Nice-to-have skills and experience: Experience of deploying an effective, culturally integrated team to quickly and effectively embed with an internal team.

How suppliers will be evaluated

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 3
• Proposal criteria:
  • Technical solution
  • Approach and methodology
  • How the approach or solution meets user needs
  • How you ensure the quality of your work and outputs meet our expectations
  • How the approach or solution meets your organisation’s policy or goal
  • Estimated timeframes for the work
  • How you’ve identified risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them
  • Team structure
  • Value for money
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • Has an inclusive approach to engaging with internal stakeholders that will support project success.
  • Will work transparently, and collaboratively as one team with our organisation and other suppliers.
  • Will share their approach, knowledge and experience with other team members and seek actionable feedback.
  • Has experience of working with Government departments such as the IPO.
  • Has evidence of how the supplier integrates with an existing team, takes ownership of problems and resolves issues.
  • Can demonstrate how it will openly share work and outputs iteratively throughout the project for IPO consideration and challenge.
  • Has a sound methodology and approach for working with and respecting a client's existing governance and decision making processes.
• Payment approach: Capped time and materials
• Assessment methods:
  • Written proposal
  • Case study
  • Reference
  • Presentation
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  60%

  Cultural fit

  20%

  Price

  20%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. Can you advise which supplier has delivered the conceptual and logical data models for the future of IPO that will inform the data structure and design of this work?: This work was completely be a 3rd party specialist supplier.
• 2. Regarding working arrangements you mention "Supplier resources will work as part of a blended delivery team, co-located with our team in Newport, Monday-Friday usual office hours. More flexibility may be arranged by mutual agreement after an initial onboarding process. We expect team(s) to reflect the roles and capabilities listed in the Essential Skills section. Team(s) will work in the Agile delivery methodology, or 'Waterfall', or in a hybrid of both disciplines".. What is the current estimate of the length of time for the initial onboarding process?: As stated in the published requirements the latest start date is Monday 1st July 2019. We usually find it take 4 weeks for teams to embed however this is not fixed. Additionally, while some flexibility can be given, a fully remote working model is not something we consider feasible to success of this project.
• 3. Could you please provide any additional detail on the downstream evaluation process? In particular the likely requirements for a proposal (beyond the outline criteria provided) and time scales for submission.: Shortlisted suppliers invited to the proposal stage will be provided with additional requirements and information. The proposal assessment criteria will be broadly in line with the criteria published in the initial assessment with any further detail provided at the proposal stage. In terms of timeline, we expect the shortlisted suppliers to be notified by 5th June 2019, with a proposal submission deadline of 14th June 2019 . Presentations by suppliers are expected w/c 17th June 2019. Timelines may change depending on number of applicants but please use these dates as an early indication.
• 4. Is the engagement to deliver specifically the Single Customer Record, or also the Change My Details service?: The engagement covers design (not implementation) of Single Customer Record, User Account Management, and Change My Details.
• 5. What roles do the IPO plan to fulfil within the team?: The IPO will work with the chosen vendor to identify an appropriate blend of roles and would welcome suggestions on this in the vendor's response. We have resources such as Service Designers, Architects, Business Analysts, and Developers who could blend with the vendor-supplied team. As a minimum we expect to provide both technical and non-technical SMEs to support the design.
• 6. What supplier team profile do you envisage?: We are looking for the supplier to define an appropriate team profile to complete delivery and do not have a specific profile defined.
• 7. Will the supplier be responsible for the delivery management of the team and the outcomes required?: Yes, we expect to drive delivery of this phase.
• 8. Is there an incumbent supplier for whom this is an option to extend? If so, who is the supplier?: This is a new project under our programme, work completed to date on this project has been completed by internal staff and contractors. Enterprise data work has been completed in collaboration with a 3rd party as per the response to question 1.
• 9. Do you have a preferred technology stack and hosting platform for the service?: We have a technology reference model that outlines technologies that have been endorsed by our Architecture Board. Details of the endorsed technologies will be provided to the successful supplier. We expect to require some new technologies as part of this delivery and will work with the successful supplier on selecting these. We have an on-premises estate for legacy systems and are looking to build and deploy new systems primarily into Azure.
• 10. What timescales are you working to for informing shortlisted suppliers, submission of proposals and scheduling of presentations?: See response to question 3
• 11. Clarifying your answer to question 4, where the Discovery and Alpha are to cover "design (not implementation)", do you mean a subsequent Beta phase will cover implementation? Otherwise, how do you intend to approach implementation in the context of this procurement?: Yes, a separate Beta (implementation) phase will be completed after this phase.
• 12. Clarifying your response to question 7, do you mean you expect the supplier (not IPO) to drive delivery of this phase?: Yes. We expect the supplier to drive delivery of this phase. Apologies, in reviewing my response I see I left a couple of words out.
• 13. You have an essential requirement of "Experience in designing and delivering Government registers using a Microservices architecture." Are you defining a Government register as being one of the 51 on the Government Register Collection? Or do you mean something that fulfils the Government definition of a register?: Something that fulfils the government definition of a register. For us, we have a register of patents, a register of trade marks, and a register of designs.
• 14. You mention that the existing work undertaken on User Journeys/proptotypes has not considered the broader context of a User Account Management Service or a Single Customer Record. What do you see as the main implementation challenges and risks here?: We see the need for a review of the User Journeys and Prototypes as the User Account Management and Single Customer Record work is being completed to ensure they are aligned to the new work. Other risks and challenges would be for the supplier to identify.
• 15. Which supplier has undertaken the work on conceptual and logical data models?: See response to question 1
• 16. 5 months is relatively rapid to deliver Discovery and Alpha for a new service. Could you share the rationale for that estimate?: We expect suppliers to ensure the timeframe they put forward is viable. The estimate of 5 months is based on our experience with design.
• 17. Has any user research been completed? How was it conducted? What were the main findings?: We have an internal user research team who have conduced user research as part of the initial work done on Change My Details.
• 18. What information about the initial scope of early Statements of Work will be made available to shortlisted suppliers?: We will make some sections of the initial draft statement of work (SOW) available after shortlisting. We expect to shape the initial SOW based on the selected vendor's response and therefore do not have a final version to share at this stage.
• 19. Will full SC clearance be required for every team member or will BPSS checks suffice with the exception of full SC for certain roles, i.e engineers involved with operating live systems?: SC Clearance will be required for all team members.
• 20. Please could you confirm if any user testing been undertaken on the UI prototype?: Yes, user testing has been performed against the prototype led by our internal user research and service design team.
• 21. Please could you confirm what access we would have to feedback from end users of the service during discovery?’: Any existing user research information will be made available and the chosen supplier will be able to work with our user research and service design team for any aditional feedback requirements.
• 22. Please could you confirm what access we would have to feedback from end users of the service during discovery?: See response to questions 20 and 21.
• 23. Please could you confirm if any user testing has informed the development of the prototype?’: See response to questions 20 and 21.