Digital Transformation -  Design and Architecture Partner. Call off Contract

Tender description

Why the Work is Being Done To support the University in achieving its vision of being ranked among the Top 10 in the UK and Top 100 worldwide it is launching a Digital Transformation Programme that will implement cutting-edge digital products and solutions for its students, teachers, researchers and staff. The education service aspires to provide high-quality teaching and learning experiences to students, the research service aspires to multiply research impact by creating more avenues for research and collaboration. Technology-enabled interactive spaces, intuitive delivery and interdisciplinary learning play a key role to support staff better, use resources optimally, and build our impact regionally, nationally and globally. Problem to Be Solved We need a partner to help us design and architect for a digital transformation programme, comprised of constituent projects to create and enhance our digital services, which will give the University of Exeter the competitive advantage when recruiting and delivering services to students from around the world, and supporting academics in their teaching and research. Who Are the Users Students need reliable and intuitive systems to support education and wellbeing, academic content, information about timetables or ways of working collaboratively with peers in both digital and physical spaces. Academics need to be enabled by digital tools to deliver high quality education content and support to students with clear information, including processing of work. To be able to engage in, produce, collaborate, track and store research in line with the highest academic standards, in accordance with funding body and partner rules. Administrators need clear, simple, reliable, integrated processes to support students and academics with seamless and responsive administrative functions. Early Market Engagement Work has been done at the University with external partners to shape the various work packages needed to deliver the enhancements required. Using market expertise and delivery experience within the UK Higher Education sector the overall programme has been scoped to give reasonable expectation of costs and time of delivery across all elements Work Already Done Existing Team You will be working with the Chief Information and Digital Officer, the Digital Programme Director, the Assistant Director of Strategy & Architecture and the wider Exeter IT team. You will work collaboratively with other suppliers and project teams working on digital projects. You will also work with senior stakeholders across the University of Exeter and partner organisations who manage the services that digital systems support. Current Phase Not started Work Location We are flexible about the location of the team, however it would be anticipated that an appropriate contact is on site five days a week throughout the delivery period in our Exeter offices. Working Arrangments How individual capabilities are delivered depends of the requirements of the work stream so flexibility is key, but discussion will be required if a large number of people need to be accommodated on site in Exeter due to physical space constraints. Currently internal IT teams use O365 and MS Teams for collaboration. Any working arrangements put forward must allow collaborative working with internal teams to support knowledge sharing and skills development. Security Clearance Supplier team members need to sign a non-disclosure agreement. There may be a requirement for the work to require security clearance checks. This will be detailed in the Statement of Work. The selected partner must follow UoEs IT and security procedures, policies in relation to access, data and equipment use. Additional T&Cs We will retain ownership of Intellectual Property Rights created during contract. Clauses 13.8/13.9 ofthe Call-Off contract will be deleted and read N/A. Sub-contracting is only permitted with the University’s prior written consent. The University to have sight of sub-contract terms Call-Off Contract will be updated to specifically link confidentiality to University’s IPR. Indemnity provisions will be extended to include breaches of IPR. Right reserved for fixed price Statements of Work; Supplier shall not unreasonably withhold agreement to such requests. Requirement to add a formal condition for the supplier to transition services into BAU and the commercial agreement regarding this milestone. Skills & Experience Evidence of shaping digital services and supporting digital programmes through the production of architectural designs, patterns and similar, collated in service design packs for implementation by development teams. Ability to provide roles including (but not limited to): design leads, solutions architects, data architects, service/business design leads, business architects, domain architects, information security lead, business designers, user design lead. Have evidence of designing and architecting within complex digital transformation programmes. Have evidence of working on complex digital transformation programmes with many dependencies and integrations with backend and legacy applications. Have evidence of iteratively designing and architecting complex transactional digital services in accordance with agile development project phases from Discovery/Alpha to Live in the public sector Have evidence of effective user research and design; and designg digital services that have met the Government Digital Service Standard Have evidence of architecting data to enable the delivery of digital services. Have evidence of designing data products and services Have evidence of designing and architecting modern, modular software platforms Evidence of designing digital services using modern technologies and architectures, and demonstrated understanding of applying appropriate security controls through design Have evidence of building capability in client departments and leaving a self-sufficient, sustainable internal capability Nice to Haves Experience of working in the education sector within a HE environment. Successful design of automation using Robotic Process Automation and/or Machine Learning and/or Artificial Intelligence. Demonstrable experience in delivery of microservices and serverless architectures, as well as integration platforms. Experienced in the design of holistic data architectures. Experience in the following toolsets: Planview, Orbus iServer. Experience in the following frameworks or certifications: PRINCE2, MSP, TOGAF, COBIT & ITIL BABOK, CCBA or CCBP, and CISMP / CISSP / CISM. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 4 Proposal Criteria Work History, including experience of the essential and nice to have skills and experience – 15% Approach and methodology, including experience of the essential and nice to have skills and experience – 10% Ability to scale resources as requested – 10% eam structure, resourcing models, experience of working alongside clients in co-located - integrated teams, representative CV’s of key roles of the people involved in making the contract successful– 10% Case studies with supporting references. We will follow up on all references given during evaluation so contact must be clear – 5% Cultural Fit Criteria Work as a team – Collaborate, establish good working relationships, generate team spirit – 4% Innovate – Act on initiative, drive improvements, balance risks – 4% Build capability – Encourage learning, share knowledge, address capability gaps, act on feedback – 4% Focus on delivery – Focus on goals, set stretching targets, take responsibility for delivery – 4% Provide value for money – Cost awareness, forecast and monitor performance, identify and address inefficiency – 4% Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Written proposal Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 20% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers Budget range the total value of all work packages commissioned under the proposed call-off agreement will not exceed £2.5m.