
Amazon

Audi


Post Office

BA

BP

Cambridge Management Consulting and Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) were appointed by a UK public sector body to support them on a major SI/Telecoms outsourcing tender, with a contract valued in excess of £750m.
The outsourcing involved a multi-supplier procurement covering telecoms network, IT implementation and ongoing services, service integration and management, as well as contact centre services and provision of consumer hardware.
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The project began with the two internal teams working closely together, to gather a detailed set of requirements and a thorough understanding of the challenges facing the client.
This collaborative method of working from the project’s outset, ensured our team had a clear vision of ‘what good looks like’, and of areas of importance to the client regarding risk and issues that required specific solutions.
We assisted with the design and implementation of the tender process. A key challenge was designing a process that would allow the client to agree contractual terms, whilst competitive tension amongst bidders was ongoing.
Normally, we would seek to achieve this by providing bidders with a full draft contract to mark up as part of the tender evaluation. In this context, that approach was not possible due to the technical complexity of the project and that contract terms in one service line are dependent on the choice of supplier and technical solution in another service line.
To address this, we prepared key contract principles to be evaluated in the tender response. This allowed the client to agree key terms while there was still competitive tension, whilst retaining flexibility.
To meet the required timescales, contract negotiations must run in parallel with separate bidders. In addition, each contract involved multiple technical, commercial and legal work streams, each of which run in parallel. We put together a core team, split into 3 sub teams, that supported the project throughout and then scaled up with additional NRF personnel to support the parallel negotiations.
It was crucial that consistency was achieved across the entire suite of contract documents to ensure that the client had end-to-end contractual coverage. To achieve consistency in the context of parallel negotiations, we put in place a number of measures:
Our financial modelling expertise is industry-leading and based on many decades of commercial and financial experience. A well-built financial model template requires an investment of time and effort
by the client, but are welcomed by bidders and clients alike. They provide clarity and transparency on what the client is seeking from the RFP and thereby reduces ambiguity or misunderstanding.
We identified key risk items and worked in detail to determine how best to mitigate the risk, thereby achieving significant overall savings for the client. Ultimately, we created a negotiation strategy focused on achieving a win-win outcome for both the client and supplier.
We provided specialist knowledge from the telecoms industry to ensure the client was fully up to speed with the latest technology and industry developments.
We provided end-to-end financial analysis and evaluation, including real time scenario analysis to support real time decision making.
To support the OJEU procurement process, we implemented a fully compliant evaluation process, with the necessary assessment process and associated documentation to ensure the project outcome was robust, transparent and defensible against challenge.
Our end-to-end support extended to supporting the internal governance requirements, including working with the internal strategy, finance and management team to produce an approved Business Case, support internal presentations and reviews, as well as the production of Board Reports.
A key component of outsourcing, where a change of service providers is envisaged, is the exit from the incumbent and transition of services to the new service provider. Cambridge MC and NRF were able to provide expert commercial and legal advice throughout the process, resulting in a well-structured transition plan and a thorough understanding of the timelines and costs involved.
Cambridge MC played a key role in negotiating with the incumbent while maintaining a positive relationship with them, an essential component that ensured a timely and orderly transition of services.
Cambridge MC and NRF performed separate but overlapping roles. Cambridge MC provided commercial support and advice at Board level. NRF’s role was to provide legal advice on the contract. Both parties collaborated to support the client in these areas:
The benefits of the joint partnership between Cambridge MC and NRF:
The team was a ‘one stop shop’ for advisors. The client avoided the procurement effort of running separate processes to appoint consultants and lawyers to support the project.
We identified key risk items and worked in detail to determine how best to mitigate the risk, thereby achieving significant overall savings for the client.
We provided specialist knowledge from the telecoms industry to ensure the client was fully up to speed with the latest technology and industry developments
We provided end-to-end financial analysis and evaluation, including real time scenario analysis to support real time decision making
The procurement replaced the incumbent providers. We managed to secure a much better deal for the client, generating additional savings of £170m. We also managed to achieve significant improvements in the contractual arrangements, including better liability positions, improved risk profile, better SLAs and increased contractual protection.
We are a highly collaborative team of senior level executive professionals able to adapt to any business challenge. We deliver the expected strategic outcomes on time and on budget.
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