New cloud-based IT service – higher quality at low cost
From strategy to complex programme management, we provide hands-on guidance for organisations that operate in complex and highly regulated sectors, including aerospace and defence, technology products and services, education and central and local government.
Attain, one of the UK’s fastest growing health and wellbeing support services firms, engaged us to help procure a new cloud-based IT service. We helped them to select and contract with a new supplier and ensure the new, high quality, low-cost service was smoothly implemented, all within four months.
Project background
After years of strong growth, since it was founded in 2011, Attain had reached such a scale that the existing, small IT support provider was no longer able to provide a good enough service. Attain’s senior management team needed to identify, select and contract with a new IT service provider, taking into account a range of complexities and needs, including:
The imperative for compliance with a variety of public sector and health-specific IT and information standards; and to ensure robust cyber security protections
The need to support a highly mobile workforce with demanding and varying user requirements, almost all of whom work remotely from head office on client site
The challenge of selecting an IT provider from a very wide range of potential suppliers within a market that is being dramatically shaken up by the rapid evolution of new technologies, such as cloud services and smart-phone apps
The mandatory requirement to minimise any adverse effect on Attain’s operations, on individual managers and staff, particularly in their front-line customer facing roles
The challenge of refreshing and updating an outline IT and telecoms user requirement that had been developed by a previous Attain team but had not yet been finalised due to conflicting priorities.
Monro Consulting was engaged to give practical advice and guidance to the project sponsor - one of Attain’s founding directors - and his small team, from the requirement stage through long-listing of suppliers, evaluation, short-listing, best and final offers (BAFO), selection, and through to successful implementation.
Key problems and challenges
The core existing IT service was provided by an IT support company mainly focused on micro-SMEs, such as shops and other high-street-style businesses. It was clearly not geared up to support a multi-million pound, fast growing professional services firm.
Other IT suppliers were also currently involved, providing additional, complex services, but they were not managed within an overall supplier framework. This was leading to complex communication and control challenges between Attain and the various suppliers. In particular, the service level agreements (SLAs) and operating level agreements (OLAs) between the suppliers and Attain needed to be refreshed.
It was very difficult for the Attain Operations Manager to monitor the current supplier’s activities and progress as they did not operate to the project standards one would expect of a professional IT services company. Also, whilst Attain has a workforce of highly skilled professionals, including procurement and commercial specialists, its core specialisms do not include IT. The Attain management team therefore realised it did not have the practical skills and experience to select and migrate to a new service provider and thus needed some expert help.
Our Solution
Recognising that Attain is an SME with constrained resources, and their objective is to keep overhead costs low, Monro Consulting provided a deliberately high value, but low volume consultancy package. Specifically, we agreed a fixed budget of consultancy days up-front and then managed tightly within this these days, and with great flexibility, over the four- month project. We delivered within that agreed fixed-price budget, and the Attain team is delighted with the results.
Getting Started
The first step in the process was to pick up the existing requirements gathering and market research work, done by Attain consultants who had moved on to other client projects. We helped the Attain sponsor establish a new team, including the Operations Manager, and a Managing Consultant with strong analytical and legal skills but little IT experience, plus a range of part-time specialists. We guided this relatively inexperienced team in how to review, restructure and refine the requirements. Our guidance ranged from the nitty-gritty of how best to maintain the repository of requirements in an accessible and controllable way, through to identifying key market trends to be factored into the procurement, and how to use plain English for requirements and to avoid ambiguity for the potential suppliers.
Building Momentum
Having established the core team and put a solid requirements foundation in place, we helped Attain to expand and deepen the range of IT suppliers to be considered. It was critical for this to be a collaborative approach, with each member of the joint team having different perspectives and having identified a range of known as well as new potential suppliers. We guided the team in how to carry out initial research on these suppliers, and then how to consider and, in some cases, restructure the requirement. For example, the eventual requirement statement was broken into discrete sections, allowing the market to respond to some or all the service categories: Desktop and Network Support; Server and Database Support; Fixed Telecommunications; and Mobile Telecommunications. We also helped the team to put a full draft project plan in place, including the key target milestones for the implementation.
From Long-List to Short-List
We worked with Attain to establish good contacts with the long-listed suppliers, to set up initial exploratory meetings to gauge the competence and interest of the suppliers, and to ask an initial set of key questions. We also helped to prepare the formal request for proposal (RFP). We provided very practical advice on how to evaluate and score the RFP responses and how to weight the scorings in line with Attain’s business priorities. We then facilitated the key face-to-face meeting at which the Attain team reviewed the scores and selected the top three suppliers.
BAFO, Selection and Implementation
Following a series of focused site visits with the top three suppliers, and after a thorough desk evaluation, scoring and weighting of the three BAFO proposals, the joint team held a final BAFO review and selection meeting, with the Sponsor as chair. Our key advice here was to ensure that there was a clear opportunity for all team members to voice their opinions in addition to the formal review of the final scores and the price. This BAFO process proved very successful and enabled the Sponsor to select the preferred supplier with the unanimous support of his team. Following ratification and sign-off by Attain’s board, the selection was announced, the negotiations completed and the contract signed. The selected supplier quickly engaged with Attain, picked up ownership of the implementation plan, and then worked with the core Attain implementation team - with a strong emphasis on continuity of personal from the procurement stage - to transition to the new service, in carefully planned stages. All stages were completed on time and to the satisfaction of the Attain team.
Results
As a result of this work, the Attain team have been able to specify, procure and implement a new, highly professional IT provider to run all their IT services, all within four months from start to finish. This new IT company is now providing a high quality, fixed price service. Attain has achieved a good, competitive price - well within the average IT service cost typically quoted by IT market research companies.
Attain’s new IT service is fully ITIL and ISO 27001 compliant, and reinforces alignment with the required data and security standards for the UK health market. The core of the new service is cloud-based, with Attain now maintaining minimal on-site IT infrastructure. A fully automated service is in place for all end-user devices - including laptops, tablets and smartphones, all closely integrated with fixed and mobile telephony support.
Client Testimonial
“Monro Consulting helped us to deliver an excellent and very competitively priced new IT service on time. Monro provided excellent advice and guidance throughout the project. Their key consultant gave very practical guidance and constructively challenged our approach. He was also very flexible in his approach to ensure we received the most value-adding advice within the fixed price consultancy budget. I was also very pleased about the transfer of IT knowledge and skills to our team.”
Struan Coad, Director and IT Sponsor