The 14th wave of the Crown Commercial Service framework G-Cloud went live earlier this month, and for SocialOptic, this is the 8th consecutive G-Cloud wave that our solutions have been approved on since we started on the framework in 2015. When it comes to working with the Public Sector, G-Cloud has been a fantastic way to connect with like-minded, forward-thinking organisations.
G-Cloud provides a simplified route through the procurement process, alongside the benefits of G-Cloud pricing. We really enjoy this efficient and fast-paced start to our engagements. It allows us to get going on project delivery much sooner, and we now have several customers who have been through multiple waves of renewal with us. If you have any questions about what procuring through G-Cloud involves, do let us know and we’ll be happy to help.
Commercial frameworks like G-Cloud, when they are done right, reduce the effort and risk in procuring new solutions, and also provide secure, reliable and compliant supply chains. Suppliers pre-vetted for security, employment and process best practice, and also now vetted for financial standing. Procurement outside of a framework can be a long and complex process, but we want to provide access to our platforms and services to those who can’t access the G-Cloud framework. To that end, in 2024 we started two initiatives which we will carry into 2025.
The first is supporting customers in using SurveyOptic to deliver their supplier onboarding and discovery processes. In the last few years alone SurveyOptic has been used to identify and prequalify over ten thousand suppliers. SurveyOptic can be configured to match a range of regulatory, ESG or Social Value frameworks, and gives real-time reports that enable you to rapidly analyse your supplier network. With the geo-political changes in the last few years, the ability to understand the impact of changes, and to run impact analysis for a range of scenarios has become incredibly important. SurveyOptic also provides workflows to enable automatic update requests from suppliers, and to manage review and approvals workflows as well as revalidation. We have also integrated with GOV.UK Notify and GOV.UK Pay so that our government customers can deliver high performance email and SMS communications, and securely take payments.
Secondly, we are shifting our internal frameworks to align with national and global standards, and have built an AI-powered knowledge-base. This means that we are able to more quickly and completely respond to procurement requests and supply chain audits. We have extended our compliance to include externally audited certifications, with certifications including Cyber Essentials Plus, which also simplify compliance checks. We have standardised our data processing agreements, and developed an onboarding process that includes a structured discovery process and support for DPIAs.
Next year will mark a decade of G-Cloud enagements for SocialOptic. Over that decade, the attitude towards cloud computing has shifted from simply encouraging its consideration, to a “default to public cloud first” for Government work, prioritising the use of higher-level cloud services like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). That has enabled us, as an agile organisation, to deliver efficient, high quality services in a fraction of the time and cost of legacy suppliers and approaches. From simple consultations through to full Government Digital Service Standard delivery, we are ready and able to help deliver better public services, digitally.