Procurement officials from a variety of public sector organisations explain why they chose to buy cloud computing services from the government's G-Cloud framework.
Posted on 29 February 2016 - G-CloudG-Cloud is the is the procurement framework that allows public sector IT buyers to easily and cost-effectively award contracts.
Approved suppliers, of which Tibus is one, are able to offer the their cloud-based services via the Digital Marketplace. The system avoids the time-consuming and costly nature of traditional procurement processes.
In a nutshell, it is those time and cost savings that encourage buyers to use the G-Cloud framework. But for a bit more detail, let’s see what some of those buyers have to say about why they chose to use G-Cloud. Here’s what they told the government’s Digital Marketplace blog.
“In terms of speed, we’ve found that G-Cloud is a quicker, more efficient route to market than buying from any other framework.”
Andrew McHattie, Procurement Lead, IT Modernisation Programme at the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency
“It was important to the NAO to have the assurance that suppliers had been vetted and due diligence had been carried out.”
Nick Halliday, Digital Architect at the National Audit Office
“As it’s a pilot at this stage, we wanted to minimise our spend on the project and we knew that buying through the Digital Marketplace would mean we had access to a competitive market. The transparent pricing has been invaluable too because, like all central and local government departments, we're working to a budget.”
Claire Broadbent, Performance and Business Intelligence Team Leader at the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale
“The process of evaluating suppliers and their services was straightforward. We looked at the services available through the Digital Marketplace and used the filter system to get to our short list. The process took around 3 hours. Then we issued an invitation to tender (ITT) to those shortlisted suppliers. One of the benefits of buying through the Digital Marketplace is that buyers are able to reduce the time the ITT is open for.”
Stephen Perrins, Category Manager Contracts for ICT, Protective Services, County Policing Command, Criminal Justice at Suffolk and Norfolk Constabulary
"The benefits of using the Digital Marketplace included being able to offer a faster solution for both our buyers and suppliers. In the past, our buyers and suppliers have commented that traditional procurement methods are slow and expensive.”
Neil Higson, Dstl R-Cloud Project Manager at the Ministry of Defence
“Procuring through G-Cloud on the Digital Marketplace instead of running a large procurement exercise saved us a lot of time.”
Nick Halliday, Digital Architect at the National Audit Office
“The supplier rates on G-Cloud were at the lower end of what we expected to pay, in fact, we saved around 10% on our estimated cost. We felt that suppliers were more inclined to price their services competitively on the Digital Marketplace because they know that buyers can see their prices directly alongside their competitors.”
Andrew McHattie, Procurement Lead, IT Modernisation Programme at the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency
“Buying through the Digital Marketplace made getting the system in place quicker. It also saved us time and resources as the terms and conditions were already set.”
Claire Broadbent, Performance and Business Intelligence Team Leader at the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale