Scottish universities launch £42m ERP tender
- Reference: 1645617243
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/02/23/scottish_universities_erp_tender/
- Source link:
[1]
The historic cloisters of Glasgow University
Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges (APUC), the buying company for all further education institutions in the country, has launched a [2]prior information notice to engage suppliers in exploratory talks that are expected to lead to a formal competition.
The notice says APUC is seeking out suppliers of system implementation, migration, support and maintenance, and hosting services. The procurement round is divided into three lots addressing systems for HR and payroll, finance and ERP.
The tender notice says the buyer is looking for solutions that could operate across a number of campuses.
[3]Skills shortage puts SAP projects on hold
[4]Expect sales reps' calls if IT wants to ditch Oracle
[5]English county council blasted for 'inept project management' in delayed SAP replacement
[6]Former Oracle execs warn that Big Red's auditing process is also a 'sales enablement tool'
[7]Games Workshop has chucked another £500k at entrenched ERP project with no end to epic battle in sight
A contract notice, which kicks off formal competition, is scheduled to appear in July 2022.
As well as APUC members, other buying groups will have access to the framework. These include Southern Universities Purchasing Consortium; London Universities Purchasing Consortium; North Eastern Universities Purchasing Consortium; North Western Universities Purchasing Consortium; and the Higher Education Purchasing Consortium.
Whatever newcomers win places on the framework might need to oust some entrenched incumbents. For example, in 2019, [8]the University of Edinburgh confirmed the migration of its core finance and human resource (HR) functions to Oracle Cloud Applications.
[9]
Getting university ERP projects right is not always easy. Last year, [10]Nottingham University awarded a cloud finance and HR deal worth £29.75m 2.5 years after a Unit4 upgrade. It decided to switch to Oracle. ®
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2022/02/23/shutterstock_glasgow.jpg
[2] https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/004781-2022
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/21/sap_skills_shortage/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/15/oracle_briefs_against_migrations_claim/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/10/surrey_county_council_sap_erp/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/25/oracle_audits/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/13/games_workshop_launches_05m_at/
[8] https://www.oracle.com/uk/corporate/pressrelease/university-of-edinburgh-modernize-operations-2019-06-27.html
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YhZoO3vWEWK458oMlUku4wAAAJc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/21/nottingham_university_awards_cloud_finance/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: "Universities across Scotland are clubbing together"
Like large companies with multi country divisions or operations they'll probably host it all on a central tower with each University having access to its own separate client and data.
The key to this is getting stakeholder and technical agreement on who owns what in terms of that central tower - and who makes the decisions when common or integration change is required.
Re: "Universities across Scotland are clubbing together"
From what I understand of these Framework agreements they are intended as a sort of "pre qualification" for suppliers to ensure that their relevant offerings meet various agreed standards. This saves each buyer and supplier reduplicating effort on the common due diligence stuff. Then the actual tender from any particular University can concentrate on the specific detail. Suppliers inside the Framework are preferred, those outside the Framework need some specific advantage to justify access. What actually happens is a question well above my pay grade!
Re: "Universities across Scotland are clubbing together"
"what makes them think that grouping universities is going to make it work better ?"
Well, those setups make it much easier to pass the buck and shift the blame when it all goes tits-up. As ERP project generally do.
Re: "Universities across Scotland are clubbing together"
Maybe they should include the dockyard building the ferries in with this too!
"Universities across Scotland are clubbing together"
This is interesting. Given the atrocious history of ERP projects I have been reading recently, I am really curious : what makes them think that grouping universities is going to make it work better ?
Or maybe it will, since there will be less manglement of the project and it will be managed by a group that wants the whole thing to actually work instead of being managed by one guy who just wants a star on his CV, or a group of psychotics who view this as an empire building exercise (by excluding all other empires, of course).
So, I'm curious.