Public procurement notice: Prior Information Notice Without Call For Competition
Published: 2023-03-28
Buyer: Kansaneläkelaitos
Country: FI
Contract type: Services
CPV classification: 72000000

Technical requirements: Υπηρεσίες τεχνολογίας των πληροφοριών: παροχή συμβουλών, ανάπτυξη λογισμικού, Διαδίκτυο και υποστήριξη
The object of the procurement  is the services related to the renewal and development of the information systems  of the national social security benefit processing. With this Prior Information Notice Kela is preparing for the procurement of development and maintenance of the national information system for social security benefit processing. The more detailed content of the program will be described at the information sharing event organized for the participating parties. The target of this Prior Information Notice is to find potential candidates to develop and maintain Kela’s social security information systems and to provide information about the current market solution offering and long-term development plans. This Prior Information Notice does not bind Kela to make any procurement based on this request. Participation in this information meeting does not in any way bind any party to a potential future Invitation to tender. Suppliers who refrain from participating into this information sharing event and meetings are equally allowed to participate in potential future Invitations to Tender.
Kela (Social Security Institution of Finland) has launched a strategic digital and technology transformation program to build and strengthen functional, information management and technological capabilities needed in the digital-first benefits services. The objective of the program is to develop modern, modular technological and data management architectures and business platforms that enable the future digital end-to-end processes that are customer centric and secure, use internal and external data sources efficiently, and can be cost efficiently developed and operated over the life span of the systems.
The benefits portfolio that is in the scope of the transformation contains approximately 60 different benefits serving the people living in Finland who are eligible for social security. The current benefits systems and underlying support services are operating partly in mainframe architecture. The current systems are reliable but increasingly difficult to develop to meet rapidly changing business needs.
In the first phase of the transformation program Kela has analyzed the scope and magnitude of the needed development work and adjusted the program development strategy.  To complement mainly internally done development and custom coding we are now looking into commercial off-the-shelf software, solutions and/or technological platforms to be added as a part of our to-be strategic architecture. We aim to significantly speed up the overall transformation time with the more ready solutions, configuring them to meet our need and focus our own development work to the domains that we are not able to find from commercial solutions.
At this planning stage, Kela will open the market dialogue to gain information about what kind or technological platforms and solutions there are currently or could be available in the future to complement our development work.
Initially we have identified that in the modern digital-first benefits services we need to have platforms and solutions:
• Core solution(s) to execute the benefits processes from notification for the need, handling and making the decision as well as notifying the customer and paying the benefit(s)
The needed platforms are not limited to the above definitions, and we will modify the target state architecture as well as the number of platforms and solutionsin scope during the market dialogue process. When the target architecture is ready with the support of the market dialogue with potential vendors Kela will open the official procurement and tender projects in applicable parts.
This document is not a procurement announcement, not an Invitation to Tender, nor will its publication start a Tender Procurement Process. This document serves as a Prior Information Notice and an invitation to information meeting. The purpose of the meeting is to obtain information about potential service suppliers and to inform the market about the content and goals of the program.
The notice is accompanied by an invitation to a market dialogue, where suppliers interested in the program have the opportunity to have a technical dialogue about the program with the procurement unit. The purpose of the technical dialogue is to have a general discussion about the object of the procurement and its determination. The technical dialogue is carried out with a joint information event and possible company-specific meetings, and possible reference visits to customers who have implemented similar projects.
A joint information session will be held at Kela's premises on 18 April 2023 from 12:00 to 14:00 Finnish time.
Suppliers interested in procurement are asked to indicate their interest in participating in the technical dialogue via the link below no later than 4th of April 2023: https://forms.office.com/e/kdcupJa9Wn
The procurement unit will send a more detailed agenda to those who have registered a joint information meeting.
The personal data of registrants will only be used for communications related to this project. Personal data will only be stored during the preparation of the project in question and any related tenders.