Software package and information systems

Tender description

This is a voluntary ex ante transparency notice of the University of Birmingham's intention to award a contract. The University of Birmingham intends to award a contract for up to 2 years for the maintenance and upgrade of its current alumni, donor and business engagement customer relationship management system (current application is Raiser's Edge; upgrade is Blackbaud Enterprise CRM), to Blackbaud. The Raiser's Edge application and its upgrade, Blackbaud Enterprise CRM, are owned, supplied, and supported exclusively by Blackbaud, a company which specialises in software for philanthropy and other external relationship management for higher education institutions that operate large-scale development and enterprise operations (88 % of the UK Russell Group work with the company). The University has identified that this is the only viable option to deliver major external compliance requirements and meet income generation targets in the areas of industry research and philanthropy, whilst maintaining the current core business that is achievable within the University's capital and revenue budget and staff capacity. The University has made a substantial investment in Blackbaud applications, notably Raiser's Edge, in process, infrastructure, and staff skills and capabilities since it was installed in 1990. The University has identified that for reasons of compatibility, the need to minimise disruption to core business, and the need to introduce greater resilience for the existing system: the products, services and support supplied by Blackbaud are the only ones capable of meeting the University's requirements. The University has identified that this will also require further investment in functionality, business processes and efficiency. Improvements to the system may include the purchase of additional modules along with relevant support and maintenance. This may well include consultancy services to help implement the additional modules to enable the University take advantage of any resulting business benefits. It is envisaged that the value of the contract will be between 180 000 GBP and 400 000 GBP including VAT.