Channel management support
Channel management support
Tactical Engagement
In building a partner network in the UK associated with its Printless service, our French client knew they would need a simple but comprehensive contract structure and content: a partnering Master Services Agreement with individual Customer Engagement Schedules, and back-to-back terms to enable partners to contract the service with their clients as well as a preliminary agreement of partnering ‘intent’, or Heads of Agreement.
We were engaged to create and document the necessary terms across each document type.
Rapid Turnaround
Following workshop sessions and early agreements on content outline, the materials were developed quickly and efficiently. There have been few modifications required so far, and none that justify a major new release as yet.
Market entry for a multi-year managed service
Market entry for a multi-year managed service
The Challenge for the Client
Nearing the expiry of a 5-year IT comprehensive managed services agreement, the POA wanted assistance with market entry and scoping of replacement services, as well as a chance to compare the incumbent provider with current market offerings.
Structured Approach
Acert was 
recommended to the senior executive team and a meeting was held, resulting in Acert’s proposal to establish POA requirements, review the market for suitable providers and undertake an RFx process to help the POA find the best and most suitable solution provider. Workshops, interviews, documentary and financial analyses were all undertaken to develop the scope of services; a long-list of potential vendor partners was then created for receipt of an explanatory RFI designed to help the POA qualify a shorter list of potential RFP recipients who were invited to meet with the POA team for Q&A. Formal evaluation and scoring aided the process of down-selection in the Rfx process and eventually three finalists (including the incumbent) were invited to present their solutions and revised pricing proposals. We then presented joint findings to the POA National Executive Committee for the final decision.
Value to the Client
With our help, the POA has conducted a scrupulously fair and in-depth process to lower the costs of IT service provision, improve efficiency and security, and open up the opportunity for systems development and service improvement for its end users.
Market entry support for a major IT managed services procurement
Market entry support for a major IT managed services procurement
Building on Success
Analysis of the IT services and infrastructure landscape at the TUC as part of our strategy development had revealed the opportunity for a broad and holistic upgrade approach, involving consolidation of several service elements. Our recommendations for market entry were endorsed by the new vCIO and sanctioned by the TUC management team. The desired outcome would be a ‘one-stop shop’ covering WAN, secure hybrid hosting, Office 365 with Skype for Business and a managed backup/DR solution in a three to five-year agreement, with built-in benchmarking, renegotiation and termination options.
Core Strength
Managed services procurement is a core strength for Acert; we were retained to support the development of a scope document for the TUC and the vendor screening and selection, together with support for the RFx documentation and overall process. This was later extended to include a leadership role with final negotiation and contracting.
Approach
The initial vendor long-list was reduced with the help of an RFI and formal evaluation toolset that we developed. RFP participants were invited to Q&A and introductory sessions at the TUC. Final RFP responses and associated pricing were formally scored to achieve the final shortlist. We developed an ROI model to track the savings benefit through final negotiations and then supported the final negotiation and contracting process. Due to the number of service components and the varying individual terms provided by the vendor, contract negotiations were complex and highly interactive. Nevertheless, an all-encompassing agreement was made ahead of the necessary transition deadlines.
Fast, Tangible Benefits
This complex engagement process was completed over a short period at the end of 2016 and early 2017, with the transition schedule set to deliver the intended benefits over the remainder of the year. The collaboration effort across the TUC end-user base, management and IT team that we have supported and encouraged to date will soon see this large change programme delivering improved efficiency, resilience and security, together with significant first-year savings and an even larger cost reduction benefit beyond.
IT Strategy delivery projects for a national trade unions body
IT Strategy delivery projects for a national trade unions body
Building on Success
Following Acert’s strategic consultancy report for the TUC in Summer 2016, the senior executive team were keen to establish the IT steering group and appoint a part-time (virtual) Chief Information Officer, as well as to commission work on the IT risk register. Earlier analysis having revealed some onerous service agreements no longer fit for purpose, there was also an appetite to negotiate early savings where possible.
Practical Support
We established four concurrent and related projects to address the required deliverables.
First we prepared a Charter for the Steering Group, negotiating its constitution and recruiting its members.
Next we wrote a brief for the role of part-time Chief Information Officer (vCIO), researched suitable candidates, invited applications and facilitated the short-listing process for final interview by the TUC senior management team.
To manage some of the risks we identified in the earlier consultancy work, we developed an IT risk register and led the first Steering Group meeting to assign ownership of risk management and mitigation tasks to individuals. To identify and drive savings, we met with suppliers responsible for the highest spend to discuss the options and begin the process of renegotiation.
Enduring Benefits
The vCIO was appointed and is providing clear direction and leadership for all core initiatives. The Steering Group is functioning well as the IT change agency, with strong programme management underpinning its strategic and tactical decisions. The Risk Register remains at the heart of programme prioritisation and is contributing significantly to readiness for the GDPR deadline of May 2018. In-year savings were obtained from targeted key suppliers, all of whom were also invited to participate in the comprehensive managed service and Office 365 procurement resulting from another workstream in the strategic proposals.
Service development consulting in EMEA for a global printer and managed solutions provider OEM
Service development consulting in EMEA for a global printer and managed solutions provider OEM
The Challenge for the Client
Well-known in the middle market for business printers, our client was gearing up to move into managed document solutions, with a wider range of multi-function devices, software and an associated go-to-market strategy. Project lead Javier Lopez needed external assistance with research in order to benchmark country capability across the in-scope markets and with sales operational materials, including Service Catalogue and collateral, partner and customer agreements.
Specialist Workstream Support
Acert was invited to make proposals and bid for the scope of work. On successful award we began work on three distinct workstreams:
Firstly we developed a capabilities matrix, conducting pan-EMEA telephone interviews with country manager-led teams and providing a metrics-based report and capabilities evaluation;
Next we authored a full Service Catalogue interacting with client marketing, operations and software resources. This covered three service lines – entry-level page-based services; managed print services; managed document services. We developed all of the associated operational document materials including forms, fleet data capture workbook, checklists, questionnaires, FAQs, UAT, project control and satisfaction survey;
Finally we created partner and customer agreement templates, used to support three-way contracting between the OEM, partner and end -customer
Enduring Business Benefit
Our client’s managed document solutions have now become firmly established in the market with numerous major flagship customers, a growing network of competent partners and a continuous programme of innovation.
Sales improvement in IT managed services
Sales improvement in IT managed services
The Challenge for the Client
Our client is a £100m pa managed services business. While their responses to formal RFP documents were solid and demonstrably successful, they had identified that a proportion of their sales teams often struggled to structure and write ’freeform’ sales proposals.
Building on Success
Based on successful previous engagements to update areas of their Service Catalogue and draft boilerplate proposal materials, the client asked Acert to provide training on sales writing to their regional sales teams.
We started by reviewing a number of their successful and unsuccessful sales proposals. Based on our findings, we then formulated a tailored version of our proposal training. The training itself was delivered as a half-day session added to regional sales meetings. Additional time was allocated over the following weeks to review proposals before they were published– facilitating one-to-one coaching and further developing the competency of individuals.
Value to the Client
The syllabus focussed on the practical skills required to formulate proposals that are easier to write, easier to read and that contain a clear and persuasive business case. Feedback from the client confirmed that the training has improved both the speed, quality and success of the sales team’s output.
Improving the speed to contract for CNS Group
Improving the speed to contract for CNS Group
The Client
CNS is a leading UK provider of Information Assurance and IT Security services and solutions. Its clients vary in size, from FTSE 100 and large public sector organisations to SMEs. Following significant period of growth in the size and scope of the services that it offered, CNS realised that its standard agreements needed a comprehensive overhaul.
Our Appointment
Acert was recommended by one of CNS’s business partners and was engaged to develop a completely new set of standard contracts to enable rapid business take-on for new clients, without compromising the risk profile of any party.
Four new main agreements were drafted:
- Standard Terms and Conditions
- Statement of Work for Managed Services
- Statement of Work for Professional Services
- Non-Exclusive Marketing Agreement (governing the promotion of CNS’s services by third parties)
Enduring Business Benefit
Ultimately, as a result of our engagement, the new contract model and boilerplate contract library has greatly increased the speed at which CNS is able to formally conclude commercial terms with new customers.
Interim commercial management for a major international outsourcing organisation
Interim commercial management for a major international outsourcing organisation
The Challenge for the Client
Our client was struggling to find sufficient resources to provide commercial support for an influx of new bids and recent successful sales.
Based on previous successful engagements with this client, Acert was selected to provide an interim commercial manager to augment the existing commercial team. Our consultant was embedded into a series of bid teams (the majority of which were to prove successful) and was then retained to manage the contract drafting and negotiation of a £40m+ IT outsource engagement.
Retained Support
Following the success of that negotiation, our consultant was further retained as an embedded team member providing commercial oversight of the outsource transition and early stages of steady state delivery, going on to further assignments with the client thereafter.
Managed Print for a London hospitals group
Managed Print for a London hospitals group
Building on Success
Acert’s initial work on spend analysis with this London-based private hospitals client had revealed a significant expenditure category in printing and copying. Further investigation established that current agreements for copiers and printers were over-extended and under-performing. The large number of individual printers in place also indicated large benefit potential from a device consolidation and managed print solution initiative.
We proposed a formal discovery process to scope the opportunity, outline the solution approach, identify the available savings and provide detailed costings for market entry, contracting and transition support.
Phased Approach
Each stage was successfully executed, winning client’s approval for the next phase. We employed a comprehensive supplier selection, tendering and award process to drive highly competitive offers from the market. We provided advice and guidance to the client who selected a preferred and reserve vendor. Retained to manage the contracting phase, we developed and negotiated the service and rental contracts, securing greatly improved commercial terms for the client. Our engagement was then further extended to project management of the service implementation the following months.
Tangible Savings
Each phase of the engagement ran according to its expected time and outputs. The resulting long-term partnership between the client and supplier successfully delivered the expected benefits from a fully managed, secure, ‘print-anywhere’ environment. As a result of our project, the client made substantial savings from reduced print costs, which easily exceeded the £1m (like-for-like) savings target.
Transforming CEVA’s Outsourcing Model
Transforming CEVA’s Outsourcing Model
The Challenge for the Client
CEVA is one of the world’s leading logistics and supply-chain management companies and has over 40,000 employees spread across more than 160 countries. With a long history of outsourcing its IT Infrastructure and applications support services in a piecemeal fashion, CEVA wanted to transform all its arrangements into a single global managed services agreement. In addition, it sought to move away from all existing input-based charging models, replacing them with an outcome-based, solution oriented contract.
Complex Scope
Acert was selected by the Global Infrastructure CIO to drive the commercial aspects of the project.
Working closely with the global infrastructure central procurement teams we supported the development of the initial business case and obtained a green light to effect the reform. Using the agreed design principles, we then developed the global outsource support agreement. Detailed RACI matrices were developed across all key service areas for inclusion in the contract, along with comprehensive governance processes, a detailed Service Level and Service Credit regime, continuous improvement obligations, and audit and benchmark processes.
Tangible Business Benefits
Acting as commercial lead, Acert directed supplier negotiations leading to a successful outcome for all parties. The contract model and negotiation process secured an improved quality of service from the supplier together with substantial business efficiency improvements derived from centralised visibility and control, delivering close to €1m savings per annum.