The Ministry of Defence (MoD), Information Systems and Services, ISS Commercial Sourcing Team has announced the bidders for a tender for information technology services for its MODNET Evolve Future Operational Service Management system.

The contractors that have been invited to bid include Atos, BT, Fujitsu and Cap Gemini.

All of the four vendors have significant previous history with the MoD (Atos: Strategic Partner for DCNS, Fujitsu: ATLAS partner, BT: ATLAS partner, Capgemini: partner in the purchase to payment system and the previous DECS, Defence Electronic Commerce Service).

The Future Operational Services Management (FOSM) requirement is the first procurement of the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD’s) MODNET EVOLVE programme which addresses the Defence as a Platform (DaaP) concept.

Adoption of DaaP is intended to enable the MoD to move from the current high-value and complex contracts to a more cost-efficient platform model with common architecture across all services, enabling smaller and more agile contracts to be placed.

The new programme will pursue the acquisition of standard market services wherever possible, to deliver an improved user experience, agility and collaborative working; whilst driving technology ‘evergreening.’

The FOSM supplier is expected to provide a UK-based service centre capability as a single point of contact for global end-users and provide operational service management and security functions to the MoD across the spectrum of ISS Processes on a 24x7x365 basis.

The supplier should also provide methods for users to use its services including the use of end user self-service and an intelligent virtual service, and provide necessary training material so end-users can effectively use these services. It will manage the receipt, processing, resolution and closure of incidents, and present information to the contracting authority regarding early incident identification, integrating with the MoD owned and managed IT Service Management toolset in real-time.

The supplier will also need to identify and manage any security incidents providing a dedicated team that will liaise with the MoD’s Global Operations Security Control Centre, and be physically embedded alongside the MoD to conduct analysis, monitor and escalate security information, events, threats and vulnerabilities.

As part of providing operational service management, the supplier will need to identify and manage the resolution of all problems, including providing root cause analysis to the MoD, to proactively reduce incidents. This will include the need to generate and manage planned and unplanned changes across all suppliers of ICT services, whilst co-ordinating the schedule for testing and verification of the deployment of releases across the MoD and other suppliers.

End-users will use the service catalogue to demand and request ICT services, which will be jointly managed by the FOSM supplier with the MoD in receipting, processing and confirming with the end-user that the request has been fulfilled satisfactorily. This will be done by, among other things, monitoring customer satisfaction, collating data and presenting information back to the authority on service performance.

The supplier will also be responsible for daily operational governance and reporting of all ICT service performance, including providing daily end user experience data.

MODNET EVOLVE’s primary purpose is to replace in-scope elements of MODNET, which is provisioned under the Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) Contract.

The DaaP contract structure will also involve suppliers of DaaP services working together collaboratively. This requirement will be supported by a binding collaboration agreement which will set out a range of objectives and principles designed to encourage and facilitate collaboration among suppliers.

The proposed completion date of the contract is  January 31 2025.