Proving once again that it’s not good to be just a plain ol’ ICT services provider in UK local government these days, Agilisys has been announced as preferred partner for a seven year, £70 million, strategic partnership with Tower Hamlets Council. In the announcement, Agilisys CEO, Kay Andrews, states, “we have worked hard to understand the needs of Tower Hamlets and its people”. And it is this that really differentiates the winners from the losers in today’s UK local government IT market.
In this competition, the council made clear that it was expecting its supplier to “deliver the authority’s vision for job creation and skills development” as well as operating the council’s ICT service. In other bids, offering the right sort of innovation requires a bit more reading between the lines. For Tower Hamlets, Agilisys will help secure £29 million in back office ICT cost savings by delivering new back office finance and HR systems (previously Agilisys has worked with Unit4 for its Agresso software, e.g. at North Somerset. And word on the street is that it's the same situation at Tower Hamlets). It will also support the broader transformation programme by creating 250 permanent jobs and more than 1,000 vocational training opportunities for residents. The council and Agilisys will create a new Apprenticeships Institute as a centre of excellence for the training, development and work-placement of apprentices. Some of Agilisys’ other BPO contracts also contractually commit the company to creating jobs in the region (North Somerset and Barking).
Agilisys won preferred bidder status after a year-long procurement, which attracted 40 expressions of interest. Five companies were shortlisted and invited to submit a proposal: Agilisys, Capita, HCL, Logica and Northgate. We understand that Northgate subsequently withdrew while Logica did not submit a proposal. The final competition was between Agilisys and HCL. While HCL appears to be struggling to expand its local government business, Agilisys is quickly becoming one of the most successful players in the sector with revenues from UK local government set to top £100m in this financial year (to 31st March 2012). That will place the company in the Top 5 of SITS providers to the sector (see UK local government SITS supplier landscape 2011-12).