Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2016-12-22
Buyer: Landbruksdirektoratet [The Norwegian Agriculture Agency]
Country: NO
Region: Oslo og Akershus
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 72000000 | 72253000: Helpdesk and support services | 72514000: Computer facilities management services | 72514100 | 72700000
Estimated value: 5000000 NOK

Technical requirements: The contract for the operation of a technical platform, system portfolio, network, internet etc. (operations contract) with EVRY Norge AS (EVRY) dated 23.11.2011 expires 5.12.2017.
The Norwegian Agriculture Agency shall procure an additional services from EVRY from the date the contract expires until 5.12.2018, which shall cover the preparation of the system portfolio for the transition to cloud services, stable operation and preparation and completion of the operations contract.
— The service area ‘network, internet, firewall etc.’ includes, amongst other things, communication between the Contracting Authority and the Supplier — 1 Gbps, internet access, mail relay, VPN-communication with the Norwegian Government Agency for Financial Management (SSØ), dedicated communication with the FRI-network (2 Mbps) (a network that is used by the county governors), VPN-communication with the supplier of auction services on the internet and remote operation of a firewall that is located in the Contracting Authority' premises.
— The service area ‘consultancy’ includes reviews and assessments that can be significant for the Norwegian Agriculture Agency's use of ICT or assessments of new systems, strategic questions, assessments of options, consequences, risk or error situations.
— The service area ‘operation’ includes, amongst other things, the daily management of EVRY's platform, the system portfolio and operational activities that are governed by, amongst other things, routines at EVRY, activities that are triggered by orders/requests from the Norwegian Agriculture Agency or EVRY and activities that are triggered by an Event Warning.
— Handling changes concerns administrative changes that affect the Contract, changes in the system portfolio, or in the Contracting Authority's or the Supplier's platform.
— Other services and requirements including, amongst other things, assistance with troubleshooting etc., extended stand-by, consultancy services, cooperation with third party suppliers, changes in the extent of operations, project activities, access to logs, orders and the error message service, agreed service level and the preparation of documentation and operation specifications.
— Operation of office suite tool including, amongst other things, telephony, exchange and a home office system.
The Norwegian Agricultural Agency carried out a maturity analysis of the system portfolio in autumn 2016 as a decision basis for evaluating clous services. Central assessment points in the maturity analysis were a cost estimate, an assessment of suitability for cloud per application or service, system options in a cloud system for Oracle 10g (database version in the Norwegian Agriculture Agency) and functionality. The maturity analysis shows that the Norwegian Agriculture Agency's system portfolio is not sufficiently technologically ready for a transition to cloud services and some preparations and alterations are required, which cannot be done before the operations contract expires. Based on the completed maturity analysis, the Norwegian Agriculture Agency will start to prepare the portfolio early in 2017, but adaptations and alterations will, due to the extent and complexity, not be completed before after the current operations contract has expired. At the same time the maturity analysis shows that not all of the rules are suitable for cloud services. This particularly applies to the regulations on public archives, for which there is now an ongoing hearing. The completed maturity analysis makes it probable that the price development of cloud services, with a lasting big price fall, will give considerable increased profitability by postponing the entrance date. In order to use the cloud services in a cost efficient way, different resource monitoring and management are required than what is in the current operations contract for the Norwegian Agriculture Agency Internal competence in the Agency must, therefore, also be developed and the organisation must be adapted in order to exploit the options that cloud services give for cost efficient operation. This will be done in parallel with the preparation of the technical portfolio, but it will not be possible to carry out the work completely before after the current operations contract has expired due to the connection with the necessary technical adaptations and alterations. The intention of a one year extension of this operations contract is to reduce future operational costs for the Norwegian Agriculture Agency by preparing the system portfolio and the organisation for an increase use of cloud services. At the same time, the portfolio shall be prepared in order to ensure a sufficient number of tenderers in the coming tender competition in 2018. There is a technical dependency between the operation period in the last contract year and the extension, which means that the extension cannot be separated into a separate contract. The financial conditions that mean that the additional service cannot be separated from the operations contract without significant disadvantages, are these rigging costs/transaction costs: Other suppliers than EVRY must make major investments in order to offer the additional service due to costs connected with the establishment of the technical platform for the Norwegian Agriculture Agency's operations, training in the system, moving and establishing all the databases and applications, establishing security systems, communication systems, firewalls and other infrastructure, establishing communication with all national co-systems, as well as users of the Norwegian Agriculture Agency's services, moving all data to a new platform, as well as quality assurance and fulfilment of public legal requirements. A tender contest between three or more suppliers will not ensure a more efficient procurement. The reason is that it would not be profitable for other suppliers to provide the additional service as their investment would not be returned within one year. Furthermore, the necessary length of the start-up period and winding-down period if the extension had been signed as a separate contract, would involve unstable operation in the start-up period and a short real operational period, even if the Norwegian Agriculture Agency had ensured a winding-down period between the old and new operations contract.


Number of bids: 1