Soft Market Testing Exercise (SMTE) for Staff Augmentation

Tender description

The University is currently reviewing how it resources its ambitious transformation programme and the subsequent Business As Usual ("BAU") support. With an ever-evolving technology landscape and the introduction of new platforms and services, the University needs to have access to the right skills in a timely manner. To meet these challenges, the University is exploring a "core-flex" model using staff augmentation. Remote working for iSolutions is now the norm so the University is accepting of a model which relies upon a mix of on shore, near shore and off shore resources to take advantage of labour arbitrage. For on shore resources, these do not need to be based in Southampton although there is an expectation that there will be a need for that to happen for some roles. This Soft Market Testing Exercise ("SMTE") is to enable the University to better understand the external market, and offerings to utilise from industry leaders. The below describes the steps of this SMTE. 1. SMTE launched and advertised by the University, 2. Interested bidders register to the Universities In-Tend System, https://in-tendhost.co.uk/universityofsouthampton/aspx/Registration. If a bidder is already registered they do not need to re-register on In-Tend, 3. Once setup on In-Tend, bidders send e-mail to m.c.gage@soton.ac.uk seeking copy of a Non Disclosure Agreement ("NDA"), 4. Bidder receives, completes, signs and returns the NDA to the University, 5. Upon receipt of the signed NDA, bidders are included to the project and the full SMTE documents are available to review and download, 6. Interested bidders submit their response(s) in-line with the SMTE requirements.