Everything you Need to Know About Digital Marketplace
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Digital Marketplace
The Digital Marketplace is the Government’s central portal for procuring most of their IT and technology goods and services. Since its launch four years ago, the Digital Marketplace has changed the way the public sector procures IT and digital services.
A little Background
The aim of the Digital Marketplace is to make it easier for suppliers to work with the public sector. The body who oversees it is the Crown Commissioning Service. The CCS apply the lessons learned from designing, delivering and continuously improving the Digital Marketplace to support a broader range of:
users (buyers, suppliers, and procurement and commercial practitioners)
commercial agreements (not just the digital and technology category)
UK public sector organisations
non-UK public sector organisations
More Opportunities
This means the Digital Marketplace has opened up the procurement market to suppliers of all sizes, rather than just large technology companies. This has led to increased competition, lower prices and more specialised and local suppliers. It means that the big companies can’t soak up all the contracts anymore, and that means more opportunities for everyone else.
What are the options available?
The Digital Marketplace helps your tech or IT company provide cloud technology and specialist services for digital projects. It uses 3 frameworks (these are agreements between government and suppliers).
On the Digital Marketplace you can find:
cloud services (for example content delivery networks or accounting software) through the G-Cloud framework.
digital outcomes, digital specialists and user research services through the Digital Outcomes and Specialists framework.
physical datacentre space for services through the Crown Hosting Data Centres framework.
The benefits this provides to suppliers are that there are plenty of opportunities for UK businesses to engage in delivering a range of digital goods and services. There are also benefits for buying organisations. Buying services through frameworks means they can save on the time and cost of entering into individual procurement contracts.
How this breaks down
Cloud services
There are around 20,000 cloud services on the Digital Marketplace, split into 3 categories:
cloud hosting, for example, content delivery networks or load balancing services
cloud software, for example, accounting tools or customer service management software
cloud support, for example, migration services or ongoing support
Digital specialist services
More than 1,000 suppliers provide digital specialist services, including:
digital outcomes, for example, a booking system or an accessibility audit.
digital specialists, for example, product managers or developers.
user-research studios.
user-research participants.
Datacentre hosting services
One supplier provides datacentre hosting to the government. It offers:
mission-critical datacentres.
a flexible, pay-for-what-you-use model.
secure facilities.
power uptime availability that exceeds Tier III+.
leading environmental performance.
The Application Process
There are 2 parts to the supplier application process on the Digital Marketplace. Suppliers have to:
confirm information about their company history and the way they work through a series of questions. This is called the ‘supplier declaration’.
add information about the services that they want to offer.
Digital Marketplace suppliers are legally required to meet a set of minimum standards. Only those suppliers who state that they meet these minimum standards in the supplier declaration are considered for a place on the framework agreement between government and suppliers.
The Declaration
All G-Cloud and Digital Outcomes and Specialists suppliers on the Digital Marketplace have to confirm that they:
1. Agree to the G-Cloud 11 or Digital Outcomes and Specialists framework terms and conditions.
2. Will take full responsibility for the work they do.
3. Haven’t broken any laws in the last 5 years.
Additionally, Digital Marketplace Outcomes and Specialists suppliers also have to confirm that they’ll work according to:
4. Civil Service values.
5. The government’s digital-by-default service standard.
6. The government technology code of practice.
Service details
As well as completing the supplier declaration, all suppliers have to provide information on their services.
Learn more about the Digital Marketplace in our full blog here: https://www.tenderconsultants.co.uk/d....