RM1043.8-1-Bath & North East Somerset Council - Unified Communications & Contact Centre Strategy & Procurement-closed

Tender description

About adding context and requirements test Which phase the project is in Discovery Existing team There will be a number of stakeholders that you will be working with. These include; 1) IT 2) Procurement 3) Contact Centres (there are multiple across the council) 4) End User focus group Once the supplier is chosen the list of stakeholders will be provided to start the engagement. Address where the work will be done The majority of the work will be completed remotely with Microsoft Teams meetings for engaging with stakeholders. There may be a small requirement to present recommendations in person and/or carry out supplier evaluations in person. This would be at one of our council offices below; 1) Keynsham Civic Centre, Keynsham, Bristol BS31 1FS 2) Guildhall, High Street, Bath, BA1 5AW Working arrangements The majority of the work will be completed remotely with Microsoft Teams meetings for engaging with stakeholders. There may be a small requirement to present recommendations in person and/or carry out supplier evaluations in person. This would be at one of our council offices below; 1) Keynsham Civic Centre, Keynsham, Bristol BS31 1FS 2) Guildhall, High Street, Bath, BA1 5AW Provide more information about your security requirements: No security clearance needed Latest start date 2023-12-01 Enter the expected contract length: 1 year, 6 months Extension period: 6 months Are you prepared to show your budget details?: No Confirm if you require a contracted out service or supply of resource Contracted out service: the off-payroll rules do not apply Summary of work Bath and North East Somerset Council require external independent expertise to lead a piece of working covering Unified Communications and Contact Centre. At a high level this will include: 1) Developing a strategy for Unified Communications and Contact Centre. 2) Creation of a Business Case aligned to the above strategy. 3) Procurement of Unified Communications and Contact Centre solution(s). 4) Post implementation review (optional). Background and current Unified Comms and Contact Centre: Mitel Phone System (On Premise) – Contract ends March 2025 ~2000 x Direct dial telephone extension numbers (DDIs) Majority of the above have been moved to MiCollab softphones accessed on laptops. ~100 x physical phones in specific locations such as reception desks, libraries etc. ~180 x Contact Centre agents across teams such as Council Tax, Waste etc. Additional Modules integrated with Mitel: Midcall for payments Datatrack Storm for reporting Talkative for webchat EE Mobile Phones – Contract ends July 2025: 800 x iPhones 320 x Basic Phones (Nokia) 360 x Data Sim Cards for laptops/devices 500 x iPads with data sim cards No integration to Mitel solution No integration to MS Teams Microsoft Teams – Contract ends April 2025 (part of O365 agreement) Used for vast majority of internal conversations rather than people using Mitel phone system DDIs. No integration to Mitel solution. Available on iPhones & Android devices, both council owned and personal devices. Requirement Summary The below is a requirements summary which is not exhaustive. Suppliers are expected to put forward a proposal that covers all requirements and any suitable areas with further detail. Phase 1 – Strategy and Business Case – Completed within ~3 months. 1) Discovery/Audit of existing telephony estate. 2) Stakeholder engagement for requirements capture. 3) Premarket engagement with unified comms suppliers for stakeholder demos showing the art of possible. 4) Options analysis covering financial and non-financial aspects. 5) Strategy creation and signoff with stakeholders. 6) Business case creation which includes benefits analysis and signoff. Phase 2 – Procurement of Unified Communications and Contact Centre – Completed within ~6 months. 1) Recommendation of procurement route/framework 2) Creation of comprehensive procurement documentation including a. Specification fed from Phase 1 strategy and business case. b. All relevant framework paperwork c. Evaluation criteria d. Etc. 3) Run the procurement process, in collaboration with BANES, including. a. Responding to bidder clarification questions b. Reviewing and evaluating received bids (up to 6 expected) 4) Lead moderation sessions, evaluating bids with BANES to finalise scoring. Phase 3 – Post implementation review (optional, please provide costings) 1) Carry out a benefits realisation analysis comparing strategy and business case to actual delivered solution and processes. 2) Creation of a benefits realisation report with recommendations. Where the supplied staff will work South West England Where the supplied staff will work No specific location (for example they can work remotely) Who the organisation using the products or services is Bath & North East Somerset Council Why the work is being done Existing Mitel on premise solution has ~18months left on its contract. The business problem you need to solve There are a number of challenges and opportunities. Challenges: 1) Inconsistent user experience for our residents due to many differing telephony configurations between services. Examples include contact centres not standardised, hunt groups being used etc. 2) Inconsistent user experience for our staff due to many differing telephony configurations. 3) Poor and inconsistent reporting from the existing solutions on service performance for telephony and lack of integration with corporate reporting platform (PowerBI) 4) Lack of integration between Mitel, EE and Microsoft Teams. 5) On premise telephony requires migration to cloud, it can't stay on premise. 6) Complex telephony environment to support Opportunities: 1) Simplify and improve the user experience for our residents and staff 2) Integrate traditional phone calls with mobile phones and Microsoft Teams offering single number reach 3) Expand our contact centres with multichannel such as web Bot and social media 4) AI answering phone calls 5) Centralisation of contact centre operatives And many more to be defined during the strategy work. With the contracts for Mitel, EE and Microsoft Teams all due in ~18 months now is the time to consider creating a unified communications and contact centre strategy, followed by a procurement process. First user type: Contact Centre User First user type: DDI Users First user type: Mobile Phone Users First user type: Microsoft Teams Users First user type: Partner Service Enter more details about this user type: ~180 x Contact Centre Users Enter more details about this user type: ~2000 DDI Users Enter more details about this user type: ~1100 x mobile phone users Enter more details about this user type: ~2400 x Microsoft Teams Users Enter more details about this user type: We provide telephony for ~400 staff who work for a 3rd party contracted service. Questions and Clarifications 1. Hi Team, Please find our Cq's below: • What team and resources will BANES be allocating to support delivery of the procurement? • What is the anticipated budget for this work? • Will requirements capture and development of technical specifications for ITT documentations be the responsibility of the supplier under this contract or will we be working with internal teams to support this exercise? • As part of the stage 1 response (using the template provided), do we have to use ‘one project example’ to demonstrate our skills and experience against the evaluation criteria or can we provide individual examples against each of the evaluation criteria requirements (within the 750 characters)? Many Thanks We will be allocating teams and resources from a wide number of areas across the council. This includes technical resources from IT/VOIP teams as well as stakeholders for services such as our Contact Centres and other council services including Social Care. All of these stakeholders have been mapped and will be available to work with the chosen provider in creating the strategy, business case, procurement documentation etc. Anticipated budget for this work is sub £100k and this is a key enabler for the Unified Comms and Contact Centre works of which the procurment of a multi year contract would be into the millions. Yes the requirements capture and technical specification will be a responsibility of the supplier working closely with internal teams and the stakeholders discussed above. We anticipate the supplier leading on the creation and documentation which will be revised and signed off at each stage by the internal responsible officer which is the Head of IT Services. As part of the Stage 1 response there can be multiple examples to demonstrate suitable skills and experience against the evaluation criteria. There is a 750 word limit per question. Last Updated: 30 October 2023, 16:12 2. Good morning, Could you advise on the following, please: - 1. What is the required start date, in attachment 3 it is the 01/12/2023 but in Attachment 2 states the contract start is 29/01/2024? 2. In reference to Attachment 3 Responses does the 750-word limit apply for all 4 questions or is it 750 words per question? 3. Is there a particular format for pricing to be submitted? 4. Can you confirm that only Attachment 3 and pricing are to be submitted at this stage? Kind regards, Apologies for the differing dates. The start date would be end of January 2024. There is a 750 word limit per question. Pricing can be submitted in any suitable format with a breakdown such as a table in Word or Excel. However for Stage 1 we don't require pricing and only the answers to the assessment criteria covering Essentials skills and experience and technical questions such as "Can you describe your previous experience working with local government...". Following these answers we will then shortlist suitable suppliers to move to Stage 2 where there will be engagement to enable a submission of a full proposal and pricing submission. Kind Regards Last Updated: 30 October 2023, 16:04 3. Please confirm that you are only looking for a response to the Stage 1 questions by 07/11/23. Please confirm if the response word limit for questions 1-4 is a combined 750 words or if it is 750 words per question Correct for Stage 1 we are looking for a response to the specific questions only. The response limit is 750 words per question. Kind Regards Last Updated: 30 October 2023, 16:02 4. I am writing to kindly request an extension to the deadline for the upcoming submission. The original deadline is fast approaching, and we find ourselves in a situation where an extension would greatly assist us in delivering the highest quality work. Currently we don't see the need for an extension. Last Updated: 30 October 2023, 16:01