Public procurement notice: Prior Information Notice Without Call For Competition
Published: 2016-07-06
Buyer: University of Sunderland
Country: UK
Region: Sunderland
Contract type: Services
CPV classification: 48000000 | 48100000 | 48190000 | 72212100: Industry specific software programming services
EU fund: ERDF

Technical requirements: The University of Sunderland is the fifth largest recruiter of international students in the UK. As well as our two Sunderland-based campuses we operate a site at Canary Wharf in London as well as delivering our programmes to 6 500 overseas students in their own countries. We also operate National Glass Centre, a centre of excellence and visitor attraction for contemporary glass.
The University is looking to make a significant service enhancement and cultural shift to how we engage with our student body. Central to our approach will be the implementation and provisioning of a suitable Student Solution Centre (SSC) to provide a key touch point to student engagement throughout the student lifecycle journey that is capable of managing and directing enquiries, requests for assistance, complaints and booking appointments and places on workshops. We have conducted significant internal reviews and identified this requirement as centric to the successful management of the University of Sunderland specific student journey through academia.
University of Sunderland will invite bids for an SSC. The contract will involve design, customisation, installation, implementation, training and possible hosting, maintenance and support of this key requirement.
We will define an ambitious scope, covering the full student journey and expect this to be delivered by a suitable solution that will interface with other University of Sunderland systems. The ability of systems and solutions to provide a seamless user experience will be key as well as a suitable analytics tool to understand and report on user interfaces within the solution.
The main purpose of this PIN is to manage a pre-market engagement exercise. The University is keen to explore what is currently available within this market space, and, prior to tender release would like to undertake market engagement within the agreed process.
As such, we seek 3 compliant responses to this Prior Information Notification and the University of Sunderland will hold further engagement with suppliers submitting compliant responses, prior to tender release. Information relating to pre market engagement sessions (including the proposed date, venue and specific agenda items) will be confirmed following receipt of your responses.
— Intuitive analytic tools to assist with further understanding of enquiries logged within your solution;
Please attach a suitable response to your application to be involved in pre-market engagement outlining how you meet the supplier acceptance criteria detailed above within 1 000 words (not included applicable diagrams, workflow examples). Your response must be attached to your expression of interest for it to be considered. All pre market engagement applications without a criteria response will be rejected.
sessions are to provide additional market intelligence and an insight into market trends and solution availability.
Any commissions under this contract or framework maybe subject to external funding from bodies such as Arts Council, EFA, ERDF, Heritage Lottery Fund, LEP etc and the successful suppliers will be expected to work with the University on any funding applications where appropriate. This list of funding bodies is not exhaustive.