When we recently met with Kate Craig-Wood, MD, and Ken Smith, Finance Director, of SME managed hosting company Memset, one of the topics of conversation was its penetration into the UK public sector market. In total the company, which was founded by Craig-Wood and her brother Nick in 2002, has revenues of c£4.5m (run rate) - see Memset flourishing in its niche. Of that, just c£150K or 3% is attributable to UK public sector. The turning point for Memset was the launch of the G-Cloud framework. According to Craig-Wood, “before G-Cloud the cost of the bidding process meant we couldn’t afford to bid without charging exorbitant prices”.
Notably, nigh on all its contracts to date have been signed with central government departments such as Government Digital Service (GDS), Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) and the National Health Service (NHS). The exception is ESTYN – the Welsh equivalent of OFSTED. However, it was clear that Memset was keen to break into local government; this was highlighted by its sponsoring of SOCITM’s annual conference in 2012 (SOCITM is the membership association for all ICT professionals working in Local Authorities and the Public and Third Sectors).
With this in mind, Memset’s win with Staffordshire County Council (announced this week though signed in November) – Memset’s first local government G-Cloud win - is worthy of note. It will be providing IL2 (accredited) hosting to the local authority. According to Memset, the council had an immediate and short-term requirement for secure, yet flexible hosting to roll out one of its Social Care projects. As only the second Cloudstore supplier (after SCC) to gain IL2 Pan Government Accreditation for its virtual servers, Memset is in a good position to attract more UK Government clients – in the central and local government markets – looking for accredited providers.