Rainmaker Solutions working with Croydon Council
Croydon Council needed to appoint a strategic Cloud delivery partner who would support them in delivering their ICT Sourcing Strategy
Jan Joubert, CEO of Rainmaker Solutions
Customer:
Croydon Council
Supplier:
Rainmaker Solutions
Contract description
Croydon Council needed to appoint a strategic Cloud delivery partner who would support them in delivering their ICT Sourcing Strategy between September 2017 and November 2019.
The ICT Sourcing Strategy is based around leveraging Cloud technology and changing the Council’s ICT delivery model by moving away from their current single supplier ICT contract to a mix of specialist vendors managed by an in-house team. In the process, the Council aimed to improve the organisation of their internal ICT infrastructure to increase the level of control and accountability for the new supply arrangements.
Contract delivery area:
South East
Contract value:
£1,000,000 - £5,000,000 (approximate)
Original CCS Framework:
G-Cloud 9
Supplier factfile
SME:
Rainmaker Solutions
CEO:
Jan Joubert
Date company established:
15th October 2010
What the company does:
A business and digital transformation specialist
Company HQ:
Buckingham
Website:
Annual turnover of company:
£20.4 million
Number of employees:
120
Type of SME:
Medium
Social media:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/rainmakercxo
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rainmaker-solutions-uk-ltd
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rainmakersolutions
- YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCc1E2OuUN51yJx%sFjOzDwA
Supplier’s experience
In relation to the contract awarded, how did you find the procurement process?
We feel that the barriers to entry for SMEs are much lower than they used to be and the application process through frameworks is increasingly straightforward. Typically, they have sensible evaluation mechanisms that create a level playing field for bidders, irrespective of size.
G-Cloud is one of many routes to market and gives organisations a real opportunity to rapidly commission cloud subject matter experts who display different ways of working to the larger consultancies.
That said, suppliers still have to get out there and win the business. It’s not enough just to be on the framework itself. Suppliers need to be confident in their areas of expertise and focus on what the potential customer is looking for. They need to do as much research as possible, talk to as many people as possible, and really focus on why they are different. If an SME consistently does a great job, people will want to keep working with them.
What worked well and what could have been done better?
The CCS framework allowed Croydon Council to benefit from a really competitive procurement process. They saw a variety of different suppliers, both large and small, who brought their own unique approaches and cloud experience.
Croydon deserves credit for having engaged with the market early and not picking a one-size-fits-all approach. This enabled them to shape and refine what they were looking for and get the right result for them.
Other organisations could learn from Croydon’s approach: to be bold and creative, focused on user needs, and trusting SMEs who know their areas of expertise. They also made culture and values an important part of their selection process, rather than just focusing on pricing and a list of requirements - we really liked this.
What benefit does your company receive from supplying to the public sector?
Our work at Croydon Council further establishes Rainmaker as one of the leading suppliers of cloud support, disaggregation and digital services to the public sector. The frameworks, including G-Cloud, have been critical in giving us access to significant government work and allowing us to grow rapidly.
Most importantly of all, working with the public sector helps us to deliver on our values, by giving us the opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of people across the UK. This drives us to deliver great work and helps us to attract extraordinary talent who live and breathe our values.
What was/is/will be the outcome of the contract for the client?
Working collaboratively, Croydon and Rainmaker started by delivering a detailed business, financial and economic case for a new ICT operating model, offering Croydon significantly better services and savings of approximately £6 million over 5 years by leveraging cloud.
We are now helping Croydon move their service delivery model away from the existing single supplier ICT contract to a mix of specialist vendors, managed by an in-house team, and commodity cloud services where sensible to do so. In the process, Croydon is changing its internal ICT organisation to increase the level of control and accountability for the new supply arrangement, using the right management and sourcing techniques for each service.
The business case and subsequent delivery is helping to secure senior buy-in to a more flexible and outcomes-focused approach to service delivery, and the budget to go back out to market via the G-Cloud and Tech Services 2 frameworks, for the commodity cloud services suppliers.
How would you like to work with the public sector in the future?
Tech Services 2, DOS and G-Cloud frameworks have helped open up the government market for technology services by reducing the administrative burden for both buyers and sellers. Buyers are getting better at selecting the right framework in the right circumstances.
In future, we’d like to see competition improve even further by removing any restrictions that focus on cost only rather than value; we’d also like to see reduction of overly long durations on contracts.
We’d really like more public sector customers to use CCS frameworks. They work, and they are providing real value to public sector customers, building credible services and solutions, in a timely fashion, through active engagement with SMEs.
Customer’s testimonial
Crucial to the success of our ICT Good 2 Great programme was selecting a delivery partner that gave us the best opportunity of making a real difference to people’s lives and give the organisation the great ICT ecosystem they deserve. To do this, we used the CCS framework to ensure there was a truly competitive procurement process, and that we received bids from a variety of different suppliers, both large, medium and small, who brought their own unique approaches and experience.
Through the procurement process, along with prior engagement and clarifications, Croydon has managed to get the best result with a provider who not only has the real delivery experience in the disaggregation of services in ICT, but has the right culture and values to work with as a truly joined up team that are driven by getting to great.
Matthew Wallbridge, Head of ICT & Transformation, Croydon Council.