G-Cloud was initiated by the UK government in June 2012 to provide an online marketplace for public sector organisations to procure commodity, Cloud-based IT services, without the need to conduct lengthy OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union) tendering processes. As a secondary aim, the government wanted to open up the public sector to SMEs and to increase the proportion of IT services provided to public sector organisations by smaller companies, moving away from big monolithic contracts with the major global service providers.

Quantum Plus is pleased to announce the appointment of Andrew De Cleyn as Director.

Andrew brings to the role over 25 years’ experience in IT services, business processes and strategic sourcing solutions. He has been instrumental in the development of strategy and subsequent delivery of both demand and supply side sourcing.

Only those who understand their supplier costs can negotiate from a position of strength!

During my day-to-day work, I have come to notice that tensions are often building between customers and their suppliers, especially in the more traditional offshore locations, but what is it that is actually causing these tensions to occur? From my experience, I know that customers are pushing hard on service levels to demand the best services at a minimal cost. They want to keep charges low, they don’t want to suffer from indexation (like so many outsourcers are), but yet still demand the crème de la crème of resources.

Being a passionate football fan, I was very interested to learn about the bidding process for hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup, especially as England was in the running. Sadly England did not win the bid, however all is not yet lost. With the recent allegations against Qatar, the 2022 bidding process could be about to start all over again.

As a sourcing consultant, as well as someone that has previously held the highest level of coaching award in the FA, it has now dawned on me how very similar the FIFA’s bidding process is to organisations looking for their perfect sourcing partner. Let me show you…