Partner/Consultant to help develop and deliver NMITE's digital strategy

Tender description

Summary of the work NMITE want to establish 'Digital Excellence' and are looking for a partner who will help them create a future fit Digital Strategy and to establish what is expected of a leading HE institution in this area. Latest start date Monday 9 March 2020 Why the Work is Being Done NMITE want to establish 'Digital Excellence' and are looking for a partner who will help them create a future fit Digital Strategy and to establish what is expected of a leading HE institution in this area. They should also help to demonstrate the journey that NMITE needs to embark on to achieve this and sustain that momentum. NMITE want the Digital Strategy to be drafted by late March 2020 and finished early April 2020. Problem to Be Solved Any partner must demonstrate a high degree of technical expertise and understanding of Digital Technology within the public / higher education sector and have a good appreciation for HE Pedagogy. Working with NMITE, they must guide them through this critical stage of the NMITE journey to develop a high-level Digital Strategy identifying and capturing a vision, key principles and capabilities. The partner must apply these skills in supporting NMITE in becoming the institute for engineering in the UK. This is a crucial piece of work for NMITE and any contract for this work must deliver the above as a minimum output. NMITE Board and SLT have flagged this work as a priority and will resource it appropriately to ensure that the timings and outcome are met. Who Are the Users As a Higher Educational Institution, we need a partner to help us deliver a future fit Digital Strategy so that NMITE can become the leading institute for engineering in the UK. Existing Team The team will be led by the Head of IT, and any other key stakeholders. Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Have helped develop and delivery digital strategies • Must have previously worked with Higher Education Nice to Haves • A reasonable knowledge in engineering • A reasonable knowledge of Herefordshire Work Location Hereford (NMITE is based in Hereford) Will to travel to other sites Working Arrangments Preliminary to be on site during the discovery phase of the project. Happy to work remotely, otherwise. Can be discussed further. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 4 Proposal Criteria • Approach and methodology • Estimated timeframes for the work • How they’ve identified risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them • Value for money Cultural Fit Criteria • Challenge the status quo • Can work with clients with low technical expertise Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method • Work history • Reference • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 50% Cultural fit 20% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Please could you give an indication of the budget you have in mind to complete this work? The budget for this project is flexible and will depend on supplier suitability and experience in this area 2. What do you class as “a reasonable knowledge of Herefordshire”? How will you measure and assess this in suppliers? Understanding the local Herefordshire area and impact that a new organisation like NMITE might have to it 3. What do you class as “a reasonable knowledge of engineering?” How will you measure and assess this in suppliers? Understanding the impact of engineering in today's society. 4. What delivery timescales do you expect suppliers to work towards? The timescales have been posted in the original requirements 5. What roles from NMITE will be involved/can participate in this project? Key stakeholders will be involved from across the organisation as and when required in order to contribute to this project 6. What roles are you expecting suppliers to provide? Facilitate, help to extract the necessary information from NMITE, project manage, deliver a digital strategy 7. What is your budget for this project? The budget for this project is flexible and will depend on supplier suitability and experience in this area 8. Is this service expecting to go through the GDS Service Assessment? No 9. Are you working with any existing suppliers in relation to this tender opportunity? If you are, who are they? We aren't currently working with an existing supplier in relation to this tender. 10. Who from your team will be scoring applications for this opportunity and what positions do they hold at NMITE? Head of IT, COO, other key NMITE stakeholders and SMEs where necessary 11. Can you host a call with suppliers about this opportunity where we can have a live Q&A and the discussion notes are shared on this tender ad? This has proven helpful on other DM opportunities. Not envisaged at this point 12. Please elaborate on "Reasonable knowledge in Engineering”. Is it knowing how an Engineering institution works? This could be in areas such as working with other HE organisations specialising in technology and engineering and/ or working with engineering or technology companies. 13. What is the budget? The budget for this project is flexible and will depend on supplier suitability and experience in this area 14. Is there an incumbent supplier? No 15. Is there an anticipated budget for this piece of work? The budget for this project is flexible and will depend on supplier suitability and experience in this area 16. Is the university only looking for one individual consultant to carry out the digital strategy work, or a team of consultants? NMITE is not a University. All proposals will be reviewed and at this point NMITE is agnostic as to whether it is a team or individual who helps with the project. It is the experience and output that matters. 17. Please could the university reconfirm timescales? In the DOS information it says submission deadline for 1st Stage response (4 initial questions) is Tuesday 25th February. It also states that the start date to commence the work will be no later than 28th February. This leaves 3 days to for the university to review first stage responses, down select 4 suppliers, issue a second stage response, allow suppliers to pull together and submit their proposal and select a winner. An administration error was accidentally made when entering the dates. This has been changed. 18. Is there a current incumbent? No 19. a. Any specific technology framework or platform requirements? This is to help produce an organisational digital strategy 20. b. It will be helpful to know high level functional requirements, is it e-learning project where students and teachers can interact, is it a training videos based project. This is to help NMITE produce a digital strategy for the entire organisation. It is not specific to any one IT or digital project. 21. Would you consider intimate knowledge of Shropshire to be transferable? This is not a key weighting. It would be good to work with a partner who understands Herefordshire but it is not an essential criteria. 22. Is there an estimated budget for the digital strategy work at this stage? The budget for this project is flexible and will depend on supplier quality and experience in this area 23. What is the overall budget for this piece of work? The budget for this project is flexible and will depend on supplier quality and experience in this area 24. What are the expected outputs from the project? A completed NMITE digital strategy