Swift Strategies Limited

Cloud Procurement Support - Strategy, Delivery and Advisory

Swift Strategies provides cloud procurement support services from delivery management of compliant procurement processes, authoring specifications for commodity cloud products and services through Crown Commercial Service frameworks, market engagement facilitation and supplier relationship management advice, to ensure buyers achieve best value for money and their outcomes are delivered.

Features

• Supports compliant procurement management of CCS frameworks and DPS
• Full procurement lifecycle: strategy, approach, specification, market engagement, contracting
• 5-case business case development through to implementation
• Critical friend advice and challenge on procurement delivery processes
• Route to market analysis and guidance
• Delivery and Programme Management of all commercial and procurement activities
• Evaluation model design and advice
• Establish and manage multidisciplinary commercial and delivery governance
• Supplier management strategy and advice
• Support of development of all procurement documentation, including contract schedules

Benefits

• Proven experience managing complex procurement programmes
• Selection aligned to user needs, security requirements and business outcomes
• Compliant procurement of products and services using CCS frameworks
• Enable return on investment, aligned to business and user needs
• Clear commercial/procurement strategy based on evidence and best practice
• Proven procurement support of cloud-based end user devices and software
• Proven procurement delivery: AV, Networks, Connectivity, SaaS, PaaS at scale
• Proven procurement delivery of Service Management and associated IT Services
• Strong working relationship with Crown Commercial Service
• Demonstrable benefits our delivery and procurement approach

£275 a unit a day

• Education pricing available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at digitalmarketplace@swiftstrategies.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

302171623283125

Contact

Nathan
020 4576 0275
digitalmarketplace@swiftstrategies.co.uk

Planning

• Planning service: Yes
• How the planning service works: Working with you, our team will create plans that take into account your internal governance processes, any relevant spend controls, the skills required to deliver the end-to-end procurement lifecycle and the activities required to deliver contracts which meet your requirements, compliantly, and to align to your cloud delivery ambitions.; ; We will establish effective multidisciplinary governance to ensure that risks and issues to timelines as well as the procurement and commercial processes have ; ; Swift Strategies will provide expertise and guidance in security, data, technical and delivery disciplines to ensure that your commercial and procurement ambitions to ensure that your outcomes are delivered and benefits realised.
• Planning service works with specific services: No

Training

• Training service provided: Yes
• How the training service works: Swift Strategies work with our clients to ensure that good change management principles are applied: adoption and exploitation of cloud-based technologies need to land effectively in your organisation if you are going to realise the long-term benefits.; ; We work on a train the trainer basis, and promote Change Champions in the business, engaging with teams to define training needs and source appropriate capabilities and services to ensure on-going training is in place. Additionally, we provide robust and visible Early Life Support floor-walking capability to ensure that the adoption of new technologies is supported in immediate weeks after the successful transition and deployment of new cloud Technology solutions. Swift Strategies will ensure that systems and services are fully documented, robust and comprehensive as part of our handover process between roll-out and LIVE/BAU of the project and can assist in creating a knowledge base of frequent asked questions for the Help/Service Desk if appropriate and/or required. ; ; Training services include the definition of a target operating model, capability plans and recruitment/retention strategies, equipping you to support and manage Cloud Services.; ; Mentoring support will be provided directly to your teams to ensure both knowledge transfer and ways of working changes are embedded throughout delivery.
• Training is tied to specific services: No

Setup and migration

• Setup or migration service available: Yes
• How the setup or migration service works: Building on our planning service, we will understand the outcomes you are trying to deliver, the skills and capabilities you have in house, and work with you to create a sourcing strategy and procurement approach. We will ensure the right governance is in place to support effective decision making throughout the end to end procurement lifecycle. ; ; Additionally, we will ensure that all stakeholders feed into the scope of requirements, how to bid and tender documents, market engagement activities and evaluation processes to ensure best fit to your needs, outcomes and best value for money.; ; It is important not to lose sight of existing suppliers and/or technical, commercial, technical, and operational constraints that could undermine a migration to new cloud services and suppliers. Swift Strategies has proven experience of the risk and dependency management which will form part of our governance proposals and approach.
• Setup or migration service is for specific cloud services: No

Quality assurance and performance testing

• Quality assurance and performance testing service: Yes
• How the quality assurance and performance testing works: Swift Strategies will work closely with you define the quality assurance (QA) processes to be used during the full procurement lifecycle. The QA processes will be managed as part of the governance established. We will act a critical friend including, but not limited to, quality reviews of tender documentation produced, market engagement and communications packs, statements of requirement prior to a live procurement.; ; All of our own deliverables will be subject to internal review by the Swift Strategies team prior to being submitted to the agreed client-side quality assurance process.; ; Progress and quality reports will be provided to the established governance to ensure visibility and traceability.; ; We have a defined Quality Management Sytem and processes as part of our ISO 9001 / 27001 Integrated Management System certification.

Security testing

• Security services: Yes
• Security services type:
  • Security strategy
  • Security risk management
  • Security design
  • Cyber security consultancy
  • Security incident management

Ongoing support

• Ongoing support service: Yes
• Types of service supported:
  • Buyer hosting or software
  • Hosting or software provided by your organisation
  • Hosting or software provided by a third-party organisation
• How the support service works: Swift Strategies can provide advisory, delivery and crisis management support throughout the procurement and migration lifecycles, and as-and-when required by the client after the successful completion. Central to our training and handover methodology is ensuring you have the right capabilities in place to provide ongoing support for the delivered contracts and services.

Service scope

• Service constraints: Support is only available during Office hours of 9am-5pm and will normally be provided remotely wherever possible. Should services be required in addition to this they will be agreed on either a T&M (pro rata) or Outcomes basis, agreed in writing between the client and Swift Strategies

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: During standard Office Hours we can offer help and support via email and phone. Additional requirements can be discussed on a project by project basis and we can tailor these to your needs.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: No
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: No
• Support levels: During Office Hours we can offer help and support for our Services via email and phone. Additional requirements can be discussed on a project by project basis and we can tailor these to your needs.

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Other security clearance
• Government security clearance: Up to Developed Vetting (DV)

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: Citation Limited (Formerly QMS)
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 12/03/2024
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: Not applicable
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: Yes
• Other security certifications: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Covid-19 recovery
  • Tackling economic inequality
  • Equal opportunity
  • Wellbeing

  Fighting climate change

  Swift Strategies is committed to sustainable development and this is reflected in our environmentally friendly policies. ; ; We provide our bespoke services on a remote basis by leveraging digital tools and modern communications platforms rather than travel to client sites, unless and until required and agreed between the parties. All employee travel is limited to an as and when required basis, supporting a limited carbon footprint. Additionally, when our teams do travel, we actively promote the use of Public Transport where the costs and associated journey times are appropriate and proportionate to the work being carried out at client sites.; ; Consumables such as paper and printing supplies are kept to a minimum as our infrastructure and ways of working are remote and digital-first with a paperless approach.; ; As all our infrastructure is cloud-based, leveraging digital tools, we are not consuming any additional energy for data centres or servers.; ; We developed and published a Carbon Reduction Plan, including our 2023 baseline and 2024 targets, on our website. We are also undergoing the certification process for ISO 14001 so that we can track, manage and report on our environmental and climate change prevention objectives.

  Covid-19 recovery

  Swift Strategies played a critical role in the Department for Education's Get Help With Technology Programme. This Programme was set up to provide productivity platforms to schools, and laptops, tablets, and connectivity services to disadvantaged and vulnerable children in England. The intent was to enable equal access to remote education to help reduce the education attainment gap and enable virtual social care services during the pandemic when they couldn't be provided face-to-face, and when schools closed, or class bubbles were sent home with confirmed Covid cases. The key challenges were delivering at unprecedented pace and scale, and managing a complex supplier and commercial landscape, in a way which had never been done before, and in a time of significant global supply, travel and logistical constraint. Swift Strategies worked in partnership with the DfE from April 2020 to deliver over 1.95m laptops and tablets to these children. ; ; On the back of this successful delivery, we enabled the Covid-19 recovery campaign delivered by the Daily Mail to provide refurbished and new laptops to communities, businesses and schools who otherwise would have not had access to equipment.; ; Our commitment to Covid-19 recovery continues with our own Covid-safe ways of working by enabling our teams to work remotely, and enabling flexible working hours for those in our teams who have to shield and/or look after family members at higher risk.

  Tackling economic inequality

  Swift Strategies have a number of partnerships with other expert SME organisations. We have actively partnered with and mentored new start-up organisations during the last 3 years. Through these partnerships, we have provided opportunities for our partners to support contract delivery to our clients whilst providing strategic advice and prompt payment to support the growth of their businesses.; ; Within these partnerships, we have been able to influence our clients' operating model design and support them to recruit specialist Digital, Data and Technology roles at all levels. Furthermore, we provide strategies and plans, in collaboration with our clients, which promote learning, development, training and transfer of knowledge for their internal teams.; ; Over the last several years, we have created a diverse supply chain of SMEs, including start-ups, where we collaborate to deliver complex technology and business change outcomes for our clients.; ; We are a Living Wage employer and are a signatory to the Prompt Payment Code.

  Equal opportunity

  At Swift, we are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are dedicated to providing a supportive and inclusive culture where everyone is valued and respected for their contributions.; ; We engage with our diverse supply chain and associate network based on ability and aptitude alone, regardless of sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, gender, religion or belief, martial or partnership status, working patterns, race, ethnicity, nationality, colour or for any other reason.; ; All wages paid to employees meet or exceed the living wage standards and we pay our supply chain for their services and outcomes on a competitive rates.; ; We actively promote diversity and inclusion and ensure that our clients are aligned to inclusive practice. We work with recruiters to target experts through a broad range of channels.; ; Swift Strategies actively seeks employees, associates and partners who are the best at what they do. As such, more than 50% of our entire workforce is female, and over 33% of our workforce identify as ethnic minorities. We are aware that the services we offer will be enriched by having a diversity of experiences and backgrounds and so we prioritise creating a team from all walks of life that echoes our values.; ; We are additionally a Home Office accredited sponsor for the Skilled Worker Visa. We are committed to investing in diverse talent from all parts of the globe and aim to facilitate their career development in the UK through Swift. ; ; In terms of our investment into young talent, we have actively taken on junior associates and provided support and learning and development opportunities through practical and hands-on delivery with our clients. Whilst we are not currently an apprenticeships provider, we are committed to becoming one as our organisation grows.

  Wellbeing

  Swift Strategies has a wellbeing policy, based on the importance of balancing the challenges and stresses of modern life and client / work demands with physical and mental health and wellbeing of each individual. It is paramount that our teams - whether they are employees, part of our supply chain or trusted associates - have the space, time and resources necessary to support good wellbeing practices. ; ; Our approach includes weekly check-ins on a team and individual basis, performing temperature checks to ensure that every individual has the opportunity to raise concerns or issues in an informal setting. Our leadership team provides support and guidance on effective time management strategies and promotes flexible, remote and hybrid working. ; ; Swift Strategies has invested in a fully accredited employee assistance programme including 24/7 help and counselling services and online and mobile app resource for employees and teams.; ; All of our staff are trained as Mental Health First Aiders within the first 6 months of employment as we are committed to investing in our employees mental wellbeing as well as an open, supportive and inclusive environment.

Pricing

• Price: £275 a unit a day
• Discount for educational organisations: Yes

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Skills Framework for the Information Age rate card

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at digitalmarketplace@swiftstrategies.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.