Eight o’clock on a Monday morning isn’t when most people would choose to talk about procurement. Even so, on 21 September CGI filled a room in Leeds for ‘SMEs Growing Together’. This was one of the first events of Leeds Digital Festival, and it was busy. That tells you something about how many people, on both sides, want small and large organisations to work together successfully.
Gareth Davies, our Director of Engagement, was asked to give the SME point of view in a short talk and then on the panel. We were pleased to be asked, and we were in good company. Fiona Bolam from Leeds City Council reminded everyone that more than 98.8% of businesses are SMEs, and that public sector buyers have a part to play in making it easier for them to win work. Glenn Crossley of IT consultancy Burendo talked honestly about how his company has reshaped itself several times over the last decade. Rob McMillan of NHS England explained how commercial frameworks have changed to give smaller firms a realistic way in, and Mark Mildren spoke for Nexus Leeds, who have been backing local SMEs for years.
Gareth’s presentation was built around two of our own projects and what they’ve taught us. We’ve written them up here because they’re just as useful to an SME as to a large organisation bringing a smaller specialist in.
Two projects, two different challenges
Healthcare Improvement Scotland. We were first brought in more than ten years ago to rescue a project that was failing with another supplier. We’ve been their delivery partner ever since, looking after systems across four directorates that each run fairly independently.
It’s a good relationship, and it comes with some realities worth knowing about. The directorates sit on national NHS Scotland Azure and Microsoft 365 tenants that they don’t control. That means that any admin work, whether that’s provisioning, permissions or tenant settings, goes through a national helpdesk. Project management and business analysis support at directorate level is often thinly resourced, which is simply how organisations like this are structured. None of that is a problem as long as it’s identified, scoped and planned for at the start.
Leeds City Council. Here we’re the Dataverse integration and platform partner on a large Citizen Experience programme, working alongside one of the Big Four. We got there through people at the council who already knew our Dataverse work, with a framework agreement through Aire Logic giving us the commercial route in.
There’s a challenge on a programme like this. As deadlines get closer, there’s a natural pull on a specialist to help out with general delivery, and our instinct is always to say yes. But the specialist work is where we’re most useful, and it’s the reason that we were asked in. Remembering that, and keeping hold of the skills and approach we were hired for, takes real discipline when you’re a small team inside a much bigger operation.
On both projects, the commercial arrangements run through a partner: Bramble Hub in Scotland and Aire Logic in Leeds. Both arrangements work well, and both made the work possible in the first place. They do mean every invoice, purchase order and scope change has an extra step, which is worth allowing for in the timeplan.
What Gareth would tell a younger TrueNorth
Relationships and partners. The public sector doesn’t buy from strangers. Investing in relationships and working with the right partners has opened more doors for us than cold tender responses.
A big client doesn’t mean a big support team. Large organisations don’t always have large PMO and BA support teams, meaning that extra weight might land on the supplier. Identify it early and build it into your scope.
Back yourself. When you’re working next to a much larger partner, it’s tempting to defer and to assume that they know best. On your specialism they don’t, and that’s exactly why you were brought in.
If you’re the larger organisation
Most people who read this article will sit on the other side of the table, so here’s what we’d take from it if we were you.
Be clear about why you’ve brought a specialist in, and protect them. If your Dynamics 365 or Dataverse specialists end up helping with general delivery, you lose the expertise you were paying for. This is often at the moment that you need it most.
Check what support exists on your side before the project starts. Who will run the plan, answer the business questions and chase the decisions? We wrote about this in our last article, ‘The People You Need On Your Side Of A Dynamics Project’, and it came up again here. If those roles are thinly-resourced, it’s far better to say so at the start of the project.
Ask about the commercial route early. If a smaller supplier comes in through a framework partner, that’s normal and often the only practical way to do it. Just allow a bit more time for purchase orders and change requests, so that the paperwork doesn’t slow down the actual work.
And when your specialist disagrees with the bigger partner on their own subject, listen. That’s the conversation you’re paying for.
Summing the morning up
Gareth finished on three points that summed up the morning very well. There’s plenty of appetite on both sides for SMEs and large organisations to work together. Getting the practical arrangements right removes a lot of the friction. And procurement is still the common challenge.
Thanks to CGI for hosting, for an honest conversation, and for asking us along. It was good to see some familiar faces and meet a few new ones.
If you’re thinking about bringing a smaller specialist into a bigger Dynamics 365 or Power Platform programme, or you’d just like to compare notes on making that work, we’re always happy to have a chat.
