Spend forecasting automation

Tender description

Summary of the work CCS requires a team to complete investigation, recommendations and design into standardisation and automation of our spend forecasting process to enable effective business planning and monitoring of performance. The supplier will be required to deliver an MVP as an outcome. Expected Contract Length We expect this contract to last 40 working days, with an optional extension of 20 days Latest start date Monday 24 October 2022 Budget Range We will set the budget in line with competitive responses received from the market. Why the Work is Being Done This project will support CCS to focus on the customer, the proposed changes to the way we forecast our customer spend through our frameworks will allow us to support Market Segmentation. Additionally, the outcome of the project intends to support business and product planning by increasing forecasting accuracy through customer opportunity ownership.We aim to draw together a number of different data strands to develop a forecast through an automated process, with sign off points. Problem to Be Solved The way that CCS is building its business plan and focusing its efforts is changing. The new business strategy requires a shift from a focus on UK central government, arm’s length bodies and the wider public sector, to a segmented market focus. The current spend forecasting processes have been reviewed and it is not appropriately supporting the CCS business strategy, nor is there a consistent process which supports forecasting to allow effective business planning and monitoring of performance. The identified approach is automation of the spend forecasting process through an external provider working alongside CCS to build a ‘best practice’ automated solution. Who Are the Users As a framework manager, working at CCS, I would like to reduce the manual element and time of the forecasting process, but maintain ownership and be able to intervene where neccesary, to allow better outcomes and planning. As an account manager, working at CCS, I would like to be able to have richer, current data to support my conversations with our customers. As a finance and data lead, I would like to use different strands of data including our sales pipeline to create a more accurate forecast which allows me to plan our business and support our strategy. Early Market Engagement N/A Work Already Done A discovery piece of work has been completed internally to understand; - the current processes and if they are fit for purpose, - the stakeholder needs within the business, - elements of the user experience whilst completing the process Existing Team The project team consists of a project manager, business analyst, finance lead, data lead and an artificial intelligence and machine learning lead. Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • time-series forecasting • data reprocessing • feature engineering • creating processes with influence from sales pipelines • using Azure environments for modelling • implementing KPIs to show performance of the solution against a baseline Nice to Haves Provide evidence of working with complex commercial content Work Location Off site. Working Arrangments We would expect the supplier to work with us on this project for as long as necessary each week. The length of time spent on this project by the supplier each week will be determined based on the needs of the project. Any communication or activities that need to take place will be carried out through the most appropriate channel. Any travel to CCS or customer sites will be minimal and at the expense of the supplier. Security Clearance All must have BPSS as a minimum. Additional T&Cs N/A No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 4 Proposal Criteria • bring together data sources, engineer into an appropriate format for modelling, generate a prediction, with the output data being granular enough to split out for business planning • capture further user needs, and prioritise to deliver a functional MVP • deliver the outcome as a modular design to hand to the Authority with guidance enabling them to iterate &maintain, allowing the authority to add complexity if required carrying out user-testing Cultural Fit Criteria • Provide evidence of working within a technical environment with multiple subject matter experts to find standardised solutions • influencing and persuading stakeholders • sharing knowledge and experience Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method • Work history • Reference Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 70% Cultural fit 10% Price 20% Questions from Suppliers 1. Who conducted the discovery please? An internal project team 2. Can you explain the difference between this opportunity and CCZN22A14 which was published on 1st July 2022 please? Are they for the same thing or different in some way? The procurements are not related 3. For absolute clarity, please can you elaborate on what you mean by ‘data reprocessing’? Engineering or manipulating what might be unstructured data into a usable format from which to use as an input to generate predictions. This might include generating tabular versions of unstructured data or extracting useful attributes and organising them in a tabular format. The exact method will depend on your approach to solving the problem. 4. For absolute clarity, please can you elaborate on what you mean by ‘feature engineering’? Taking raw numeric or text data in a tabular format and producing meaningful features (attributes or characteristics) that might be useful in generating predictions. These might be counts or averages over time of certain raw variables. The specific types of feature engineering required will depend on your approach to solving the problem. 5. Please can you share the Discovery report with suppliers so they can assess their capabilities against your detailed requirements? Requirements resulting from the discovery phase will be released to successful bidders via the ITT. Additional stakeholder interviews / user research will be required by the successful supplier to gain full requirements for the outcome 6. Could the Authority please confirm if ‘40 days’ refers to calendar days or man days? It refers to man days 7. Could the Authority please confirm what is driving the 40-day timeline? We have estimated the timescales required through prior experience, there is an extension option if necessary 8. Is the idea to build a solution (albeit MVP) from scratch or look for a Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) solution that meets the requirements of the business? The approach is to develop a bespoke MVP solution without relying on other software or hardware not already owned or operated by CCS. 9. In the work performed to date, would you say that the Requirements for the new automated solution have been documented fully for all Stakeholders or is this something to be done? Additional stakeholder interviews / user research will be required by the successful supplier to gain full requirements for the outcome 10. Are there any technical assumptions for the solution if it is to developed from scratch such as robotics? In this instance “automated” does not include robotics, merely the collation, manipulation and processing of data automatically to produce a meaningful output with as few manual interventions as possible. 11. Will CCS consider a solution that includes non Azure deployments? The authority already uses Azure for data management and analytics and believes this ecosystem should be fit for purpose, therefore we are not expecting to purchase any other systems. However, where a credible need can be shown it may be acceptable to add extensions to the Azure environment core for specific functionality but we would hope to avoid this. 12. Will CCS consider a solution in which the supplier provides ongoing maintenance? No, the supplier will be expected to hand over to the Authority including guidance on how to update and maintain 13. As detailed in the Q&A session section the last day for clarifications was 17:00 10th August 2022. As detailed in the Q&A session section the last day for clarifications was 17:00 10th August 2022.