Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2022-12-23
Buyer: Posten Norge AS
Country: NO
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 72314000: Data collection and collation services
Estimated value: 64500000 NOK

Technical requirements: Norway Post makes comparisons and analyses of data in SAS from 70 other business applications/systems that the Norway Post group uses in its enterprise. All of them are adapted and programmed for inclusion in SAS' database. Norway Post intends to enter into a contract with SAS Institute AS in order to continue the current SAS system and associated software that is used by Norway Post in a cloud-based SAS system.
Services that only a specific supplier can provide based on technical reasons, cf. the regulations on procurements in the utilities sector (FF) FF § 9-3 b) 2) and the supplier has exclusive rights, including intellectual property rights for parts of the need, cf. § FF § 9-3 b) 3). Norway Post has, as part of a joint group IT system, developed a large database/data warehouse over many years based on SAS software and an SAS code for the collection, reports, and analysis of data from all of the Norway Post group's core systems. If there is a change of database supplier from SAS to another provider, all of the codes related to these business applications in SAS DVH would have to be reprogrammed in order to adapt to a new supplier's programme/language.
The coming required version upgrade of the core software delivered by  SAS in the system will require that Norway Post moves its self-developed SAS code, adapted to Norway Post's operations concept, to a more recent version of the SAS technology. In the global market there are no others than SAS Institute that can deliver a continued system for Norway Post, and, in addition, deliver this as a cloud service. Norway Post's self-developed SAS code that is used in the current system (on-premises) is vital for Norway Post's activities, and has a very long remaining lifetime. These are large, complex systems that have been developed by Norway Post over a long time in a  SAS-proprietor code language. A change of technology and rewriting Norway Post's self-developed SAS code would be very time consuming, costly, and require a lot of resources to carry out. Norway Post has considered alternative systems in the market, and is of the opinion that there are no available suppliers that have reasonable systems, and that it is not responsible to change suppliers. In addition, a change of technology would involve a large risk as Norway Post would lose its own key competence and have an unforeseen high need for consultants for the change of technology. The current licence hire contract with SAS expires at the end of 2022. The new contract with SAS will cover the data warehouse services with the equivalent functionality that SAS currently provides, as well as the operation of the service in a cloud system (Hosted Managed Service - SaaS) delivered by SAS Institute on their cloud platform, in this case at Microsoft Azure.
Services that only a specific supplier can provide based on technical reasons, cf. the regulations on procurements in the utilities sector (FF) FF § 9-3 b) 2) and the supplier has exclusive rights, including intellectual property rights for parts of the need, cf. § FF § 9-3 b) 3). Norway Post has, as part of a joint group IT system, developed a large database/data warehouse over many years based on SAS software and an SAS code for the collection, reports, and analysis of data from all of the Norway Post group's core systems. If there is a change of database supplier from SAS to another provider, all of the codes related to these business applications in SAS DVH would have to be reprogrammed in order to adapt to a new supplier's programme/language.
The coming required version upgrade of the core software delivered by  SAS in the system will require that Norway Post moves its self-developed SAS code, adapted to Norway Post's operations concept, to a more recent version of the SAS technology. In the global market there are no others than SAS Institute that can deliver a continued system for Norway Post, and, in addition, deliver this as a cloud service. Norway Post's self-developed SAS code that is used in the current system (on-premises) is vital for Norway Post's activities, and has a very long remaining lifetime. These are large, complex systems that have been developed by Norway Post over a long time in a  SAS-proprietor code language. A change of technology and rewriting Norway Post's self-developed SAS code would be very time consuming, costly, and require a lot of resources to carry out. Norway Post has considered alternative systems in the market, and is of the opinion that there are no available suppliers that have reasonable systems, and that it is not responsible to change suppliers. In addition, a change of technology would involve a large risk as Norway Post would lose its own key competence and have an unforeseen high need for consultants for the change of technology. The current licence hire contract with SAS expires at the end of 2022. The new contract with SAS will cover the data warehouse services with the equivalent functionality that SAS currently provides, as well as the operation of the service in a cloud system (Hosted Managed Service - SaaS) delivered by SAS Institute on their cloud platform, in this case at Microsoft Azure.


Winner: Oslo Tingrett
Award value: 64500000