Latest / Public Sector Tech Debrief / #2: Good handovers and real reuse

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#2: Good handovers and real reuse · Public Sector Tech Debrief

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back to the public sector tech debrief.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my name is Andy Price.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the Chief Commercial Officer at Digital Modus.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Last week we spoke about um what does good self-sufficiency look like in our customers?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: How do you build it?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about and touched upon some of the topics around reuse and kind of how do we build components for our customers that can be reused in the future and reusable components.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: This week we're going to take that one step further.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm joined again by Nick Howes, the CEO and co-founder of Digital Modus.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hi there.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Good to see you again, Nick.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: What we wanted to talk about today is obviously go into a bit more detail of what we discussed last week.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we talked about some of the things customers should be driving around self-sufficiency with their with their partners and suppliers.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the level down today is what does that look like in practice?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does a good handover look like from supplier to customer?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what are the sort of activities you like to see our customers going through to maintain that?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna use a couple of um uh real-world examples here.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Quite recently we've delivered a uh a great solution for uh the Foreign Office, well foreign Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a solution that citizens interact with.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it helps people that are in in a difficult position.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: We've all been there.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we're talking about those people that might well have lost a passport or need a uh, you know, kind of an emergency travel document, etc.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you need a good solution to be able to understand what you need to do with FCDO, and then really understand um how you're going to get a travel document.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: So they needed something that actually worked quite simply for those who are, you know, maybe abroad, maybe stuck in a situation that just uh isn't isn't good.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, I don't I've only ever lost a passport once.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've never lost it.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was stuck in my luggage and didn't realise where it was.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, you know, the the sheer panic that goes through you, you can understand what that means for a lot of people um uh when they're away.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you need something that is actually really simple to use, um quite elegant, and actually gets them to a point of action um pretty quickly.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate where your question was, but I think it's worthwhile just just just kind of framing that.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um so FCDO came to market for um uh in effect a um an automated booking solution.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, kind of how do I help citizens in need book a time and a place uh to get the right kind of document?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we worked with those guys, we delivered the solution um into them, uh, and the handover I think was um absolutely superb.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: I would go so far as to say, you know, kind of in in many years of being in this industry, uh, far too many some might say, but I think it's it's one of those things that I would look at and say, it's an exemplar.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um we worked really well with the customer through the project.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they were um very open and receptive to um understanding how the new technology that they'd chosen could be used and were open to new ideas.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh for us, what we did is very early on in the project, once we'd really understood um where we thought we were going with the technology solution, we started to build and think about, or started to think about and then build the assets that we knew would be passed over to the customer and to help shape their understanding.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't think it's it's not a thing that happens at the end of the project, it's a thing that should happen, uh, and we certainly delivered it that way through the project.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it's about creating really good assets all the way through the project that enable not just the users but your people who are supporting first line, second line support, etc., engagement with other vendors.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: How do they actually understand what the solution is?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: What does it do?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to them in the role that they're working in currently?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we continue to build that all the way through the project.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: So when we got to, you know, kind of handover, you know, you always get that that date, which is, you know, gotta this thing's gonna go live.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it wasn't a big we're gonna flick the switch and we're gonna sit here with our fingers crossed and hope that it's gonna work.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was a transition that was incredibly smooth.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you only do that by thinking about the end outcomes all the way through the project and trying to drive some consistency with the customer to consistency about how you interact.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the first hurdles you have to go over.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, consistency of quality in terms of understanding what the customer wants from you as the as the provider of services into the organization, making sure you've got that really captured, and then building that into everything that you do.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just incremental.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: So by the time you get to this point where, you know, as I said, most people have this fear of flicking the big switch and it, you know, it going live, it's never like that.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: You run the system, it works, it flows.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: You've captured how it works whilst you're building it, and it goes into your asset library.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it's about small steps, you know, it's about making sure that you, you know, a we really understood what the customer wanted, but but the testing with the customer all the way through.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it was never about getting good handover, is never about getting to the end.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think it starts right at the beginning.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's uh that that's common that we've seen across a lot of our customers is I think traditionally a handover or a transition as as it was as it was called in the contract becomes almost a paper-based exercise.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: You have created Artifact X that passes the transition milestone.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: You give them the plan that does milestone number two.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think as you say there, Nick, getting people involved in the project in life, actually part of the show and tells, part of the user groups really, really early on through that throughout the whole life cycle of it.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: By the time it gets to flicking the switch, they're already integral and part of that team, they're already delivering the solution.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what we've seen in some of our most successful uh implementations.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you you mentioned FCDO, I think um Desnes and I work with ICS over there is a really good example of that.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, as that maturity sort of increases, they're involved earlier and earlier on as part of their own function and that intelligent customer function we talked about in the previous episode.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you're right.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think when customers are thinking about handover, they almost need to be thinking about it from day dot.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: When the contract kicks off and when the engagement kicks off, what does that look like for us?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: How do we measure it?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we make sure by the time we get to go live, that's already done almost?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I suppose there's a a slight pivot, but we did talk about reuse last week, and we talked about um how we've seen reuse used within one customer and used broadly across a number of uh their departments within one customer.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Where have you seen it in between customers?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Where have you seen good reuse kind of picked up between one of our customers and then either deployed or or kind of uh taken somewhere else?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think we used the example previously of um Desnes.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of components were were built for Desnes, and Desnes is one of those organizations that um it's almost in a that kind of spider web scenario where they've got lots of arm's length bodies who you know kind of have their own reporting structures who can make their own decisions.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: They are part of the wider family, absolutely there's no doubt.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: But um I think if you look at some of the things that we have uh delivered at Desnes and been able to pick those up and take those into other organizations, other arm's length bodies within the you know, kind of the DESNES sphere, that's really good.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, kind of these are you know, Desnes quite mature now in terms of the technology that they've chosen, how they're using the technology, how they work with us as a supplier.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's quite a difference to an organization that very much has its own, has its destiny in its own hands, has its own charter, its own way of doing things.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, looking at what what's good over here and being able to say, actually, with what do you want to achieve as an arm's length body, here are some elements where you can pick a technology platform, you can then also pick these components, and they will build on top of that solution to give you a much faster um complete implementation and deliver some services that actually are going to be really important to you know citizens out there moving forward.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna enable them to interact with the government service a hell of a lot quicker, and it's gonna enable them to get to an outcome a lot quicker.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think the organizational kind of behavior and the way that an organization is set up, like as you say, Desnes with a lot of arms-leath body, we've seen the same on Cabinet Office.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, they have connections into a lot of the departments through kind of joint projects or or the way that they manage into those departments, and that's where we've seen reuse as well.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Is as they start to work with some of these departments, they showcase what's been done, they're sharing some of that knowledge.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the the department that's serving into Cabinet Office isn't starting from scratch.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think, but that's quite a mature customer when we're talking about here.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's something to that's been built up over probably years and years of delivering on platform strategy and the way platforms are being used at the department.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say for someone starting out uh new on that journey, how do how do they start to gather some of that internal departmental knowledge or or kind of departments that are adjacent to them?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, again, I think it's it, you know, it's one of those things where good communication with your peers across the whole of your network, you know, having that conversation with technology vendors, having that conversation with with uh providers of services in the marketplace that you know.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um trying to bring that knowledge um into your organization, again, become a sophisticated customer.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, understand what the technology might do for you, understand how the providers of services might interact with you, might interact with the technology to deliver the outcomes that you want.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Use the good examples that are out there in the marketplace of you know, kind of what's good on the platform, uh, and you know work with those providers where you can see that there's a history of um, you know, they've delivered quite simply, they've delivered outcomes, and the customer has um, in effect, been left with a solution that they can own and manage and support themselves and then engage with suppliers as and when they need to moving forward, but they are in control of their own destiny, it's not somebody who's got a long-term um support and maintenance commitment with a third-party provider where it just drags on and drags on and drags on.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Probably my follow-on question to this is what in your in your experience, what's made that reuse possible?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Has it been a technology choice?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a way of working that you've seen that a customer has exhibited very early on?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, was it how a contract's structured?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: What are the things that are driving driving reuse?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think all of those are actually really good.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but working with a uh, I guess an organization such as ours, where you know uh our first thought is always what have we done?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: What could we reuse?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the great thing about government is once you've built something for government, it's available across government.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: So ethos and philosophy of of our business, as you well know, we want to deliver great outcomes.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Great outcomes are achieved by looking at what you've done elsewhere.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Can you can you take it wholesale?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Can you take it with a 10 or a 20% change and implement that into the customer?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Talk to the to the new customer about what you might be able to do and what the benefits are for that new customer of having done that.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Get the new customer to potentially engage with the the customer that you've did it for, you did it for previously.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um get them talking about it, get them talking about the functionality, get them talking about how you can build these things really, really quickly on a technology platform.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like you say, probably all equal when you start to think about stuff like this, because some technologies, well, a lot of technologies we're seeing across the public sector now in the platform space, are being built for reuse, they're being built to be able to be configuration versus customization.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think a lot of our customers are thinking that way because they're they're trying to build their investment cases for what these platforms can look like.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'd slightly disagree with you.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um on the point of uh the technology is available, absolutely.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um are most customers um encouraged to think about it in that way?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are still a a lot of providers in the marketplace that are quite happy um to keep churn in the handle, um, quite simply.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, they're professional services businesses, um, and you know, that's how they have to run.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you raise a good point.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: How do customers get around that?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: What's some of the stuff that they can be thinking about contractually?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: They can be thinking about when they're setting these relationships up to get over that, I suppose.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think you know, it it's back to the point of a little bit of sophistication uh in the early stages goes a long way.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, technology market is is rapidly evolving.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: We can see that with, you know, kind of well, you you can't do anything in technology without putting AI at the front of any kind of sentence right now.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, AI four years ago, notional, AI today, fundamental to what you want to do moving forward.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think you know, kind of being abreast of of where the technology is, that that's one thing.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Understanding how you use the technology, very, very different.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Working with vendors that can present a uh a really good position that resonates with what you want to achieve on behalf of of your customers as a as a as a government institution uh or as a as a public health institution, you know, patients, citizens, think about it from from that uh from that perspective.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think understand you know, kind of the the pace of change is is enormous.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: You can only work with what we know right now, yeah.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: But creating uh an opportunity for you to be slightly flexible around what you do, how you do it, you're always gonna need to do more, quite simply.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Be sensible, build some headroom in.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're always there there are always financial challenges in government.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely get that.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you build headroom in and you don't use it, I think that's fine, absolutely, but you're always probably gonna need it.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: So think about what that might look like moving forward.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I think those are those are some of the areas that I I would venture um you know, kind of uh public sector bodies need to need to be thinking about.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um the technologies now that are available are immense compared to you know kind of what you might have to put together.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're working on a on a bit at the moment where the incumbent um uh has well, I think it's probably about I think it's about 900 people working inside a public sec, you know, 900 consultants working inside a public sector body.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we're the kind of organization that are looking at that and saying, actually, we can bring that down significantly.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, hugely significantly, uh, and use the technology in the right way, do some of those things that you know we've built a component over there, can we use it here?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, explaining it and and talking it through with the customer, what does it actually mean, but getting them to an outcome point really, really quickly as opposed to just trying to churn through more and more days.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I also think the the you touched upon it, the AI, the AI emergence and to the level that it's becoming kind of prevalent across everything we're talking about at the moment is also changing customers' expectations of how quickly things can be done and how much reuse there is.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's challenging the traditional consulting model as we've seen it.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can't turn up with 900 bodies now because they're expecting AI to do 700 bodies work of that.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the thinking about reuse really early on is really important.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we touched upon it a bit last week, and we looked at we were talking about what are the sort of customer behaviours and activities that our customers could be doing before they even get to kind of contract or tender stage around what they can do to research reuse technology, um, what the technology can do, what the platforms of what platforms are available to drive reuse.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what are some of the what's some of the homework activities the customers could be doing very early on before engaging?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think having a really good understanding of the marketplace is one.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, kind of technology is moving at an absolute pace.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't think, you know, if you went to any vendor and said, could you, you know, kind of give me a broad brush overview of your solution, I don't think they're gonna try and kick you out the door.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're gonna open, you know, uh welcome you with open arms.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you know, you're gonna get that, and you have to be able to wave through um the love that you're gonna get off of a technology vendor and try to understand how might that technology fit into what it is that you need to do as part of your mission as a department, uh, as a as a public sector body.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: And some of these things are are you know incredibly complex.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Having a view of platform as a technology and a genuine platform as a technology, as opposed to you know, everybody's got a platform.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um looking at what what what's the core of your work, you know, in government, there's an awful lot of, for example, variety of different flavours of case management that goes on.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you pick a grants management system, it's case management.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you pick a debtor system, it's case management.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, these are these are systems that go through a series of processes, there's a determination, an outcome, a route of appeal, all of those things are fairly common across the way that these systems work.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: So what's it what is what does good look like on a platform?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: How can how can you see from a technology vendor, show me some examples of of this across a number of different government departments?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just a show me the specific example of what where this has been done exactly in the way that I think I'm doing it right now in the future.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's being able to understand, you know, kind of what you need to do, but what are the alternatives that you've got, what are the options that you've got, how might you make this thing go faster?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: How might you make it go further?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: How might you get better value for money out of the technology platform?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's one of the things that you can do.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you do that by I think being more open than maybe government has been in the past, you know, kind of have really good relationships with the technology vendors, really understand what the platforms can actually drive, uh, and open your arms to the technology or the art of the possible conversation with technology.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and again, you know, kind of to bring it back to to AI, it's changing the game completely.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, really understand what does AI mean for not just you in your environment and what you might be able to do, but what does it mean for the tech vendor as well?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: And have have the conversation with the partners that you might be thinking about working with of what's their view on AI?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Where does AI fit in what they do internally?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Where do they see AI fitting into what you want to do or what you need to do more to the point moving forward?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: How can AI help you to get to a better outcome or or a far or get faster to the outcome?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: So use that technology, use the forward thinking of the vendors, do the exploration up front, but do a deep exploration because it's worth it in the long term.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of I'm I'm sure at some stage during this you'll you'll have one of my co-founders sat on the uh on the couch and and you know, kind of he can run you through a a scenario that he went through um many, many moons ago where he evaluated three technologies um and ended up picking the one that on paper was the most expensive up front.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, when you looked at whole whole life cost over five years, it became the cheapest because whilst you were paying more for a license, the amount you paid for professional services to actually get to an outcome that you wanted was a lot lower.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: So try and get to that situation where you understand the whole life costs uh of a program of work versus what's what am I gonna buy the cheapest up front?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think just replaying that back a little bit.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think what you're saying there is engage early and engage broadly on those those tech providers because, as you say, they're not gonna kick you out of the room if you ask what can the platform can do across multiple use cases.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, unfortunately, there are scrupulous salespeople in those organizations that will show you everything that's in there.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I think then it's down to the customer to work with that selected, trusted group of partners that they might want to work with to start to narrow down that purview of what the actual implementation or what the what the technology could do in that use case.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: But you're right, I don't think I think the pitfalls we've seen with customers is that they think that their process is is unique and a snowflake and cannot be replicated anywhere else.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and at the core of it, that sometimes is right with the with the kind of edge of the 20% around that process.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, what sits underneath is very common.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as you start to look at it in a more common way, you can identify reuse very quickly.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think then that scales broader than that.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose that's a slight segue on to more practical advice that we can give to our customers.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's it's probably taking some of that the rest of this conversation.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: What advice would you give to a commercial lead?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Someone who is starting to run a procurement around an implementation, that what are the measures that they can put into that contract around reuse that makes it, I suppose, a little bit more enforceable and a little bit more tangible versus aspirational?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I think some of it would be you know kind of if you're in that position where you're starting to pull together the your route to market, how you do that, um, to make it compliant.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: As the commercial lead, really good engagement with the wider business.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that's key.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And also, you know, try try to be part of that engagement, that that early engagement.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not all new information that's coming to you.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um the organizations that we've worked with we think that they're really sophisticated, is procurement are involved all the way through.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're not just presented with a can you go and get me one of these.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's understanding what the short-term ambitions are, the long-term ambitions, how do you need to contract to be able to drive that effectively?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's one of the things that you could you can you can definitely do.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Again, you know, intelligent customer, sophisticated customer, a variety of different terms for that, but ultimately be engaged early as a procurement lead, as a contract lead.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um and by doing that, you that understanding of the technology allows you to craft and create exactly what those milestones are, not just in the short term, but what they are long term moving forward as well.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you understand what they are, you you know that the uh that they're realistic.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and if they're realistic, you've got a higher proportion, prepared higher proportion, cut that.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: If they're realistic, what you're able to do is put those realistic um milestones into your contractual documentation and they're agreeable, they're not just a supplier signing up to say, Oh, yeah, we'll do that and we'll try and work out how we, you know, if the if they're if they're genuine uh and come from a place of understanding of the technology, how the technology should be delivered, suppliers will be able to work within that framework.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I think, you know, again, a little bit of intelligence applied early, a little bit of forethought into the process, don't just make it too many stage gates, you know, be involved, harmonize your team inside the organization so that everybody's involved in the process as you go through the process.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think the other thing that is really good when you start to write up requirements and specifications like this is look for referenceable examples of it.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: When you ask for the case studies as a customer, ask for what reuse they've driven in metrics within those within those customers that they're referencing.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Can you go and speak to that customer and see whether that's actual fact or it's just very good marketing uh spiel?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that's a really good way of wading through people that are going to come back with generic reuse and then kind of get to the actual reuse.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think the other point that um that we've we've kind of looked at in the life cycle of our customers is how can you get to let me start that again.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: The thing that we've looked at with some of our customers as we we get into the kind of the later stages of reuse is how much is that speeding up deliveries?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: How much of that is against a baseline cost, reducing cost to deliver.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I think they are aspirational things to start putting in contracts, but you need to start planting those seeds very early on.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you get cut you get suppliers driving to that behaviour instead of building reuse up front and not just as a kind of a tick box exercise or a QBR type result that they can put on a slide.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're actually going to be measured and penalised if they're not doing it when they get into the life cycle of the contract.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you've got to penalize a supplier in the right way.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: That much I will say, right?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, kind of give the supplier the opportunity to to make it work to get back to you know, good.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that that that's that's a fundamental things will slip on occasion.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: We've all been there, but it's how quickly do you does the supplier react?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: How quickly do they get back on track?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think those those things are super important.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think there's a lot of um really good examples out there in the marketplace of people that have that have done this well now, um, and they are open to conversation.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I also think that um if you're looking at a technology and you're looking at a way to implement the technology, I would always advocate um trying to get the the technology provider and potentially the services provider in a room together as well.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah because you can then see the dynamic between the two.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: How do they interact, how they interoperate?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, most large technology stacks come with a best practice manual.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Completely agree.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: You should use the best practice manual, but on occasion, it never goes far enough, it never goes deep enough.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's about understanding with those suppliers that you might want to work with who can have a really good conversation or where can you see a really good conversation between a vendor, uh a technology vendor, and a potential um professional services partner?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: That will tell you a lot about how well your implementation is going to go.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here's taking it a step further, and this might be a little bit pie in the sky.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: How realistic do you think it is to link the outcomes and the way that a tech provider's measured and a services provider's measures to get to that reuse point?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: As a contracting body, you can be sophisticated about how you do that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's that there's a significant move in the marketplace at the moment, away from you know standard license pricing, per seat license pricing, or concurrent license pricing to consumption-based pricing for AI, for example.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, again, find a way to understand the outcomes that you want.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: How does that drive the pricing mechanisms?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, with consumption, sorry, going to state the glaringly obvious here.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: The more you use it, you know, kind of the more money it's gonna be.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, find a way so that the unit price actually comes down.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you're using the technology effectively, spend more on it because actually it's driving some outcomes for you.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the technology spend is it yeah, absolutely you need to keep an eye on it, but it's the thing that's actually going to drive savings elsewhere in the organization.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: So understand that, I think is is one of the key things.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, understand what your potential uh partner who might deliver your services is saying about how you should use that.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Where's the management of consumption-based computing?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: How do you understand what you're gonna be using, how you're gonna be using it, etc.?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: What are they doing to help you build a sustainable model again around consumption?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how do you how do they help you to put the stage gates in place around that consumptive use?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: I also think the roles that partners are going to bring to the table are going to change around that as well.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think that this is I was speaking to an ex-colleague the other day, and it this was the first time they've had to put an architect on the ground that is just solely focused on consumption-based pricing and how how the how the system's being architected to ensure that consumption doesn't run a f run a route, basically.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's gonna change the type of people and the type of delivery that that turns up on on kind of day one for a lot of these customers.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: So Nick, just a the big one to finish on.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if someone was listening today, what was the what would be the one big kind of item you'd like them to take away?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, apart from uh obviously contacting us straight away and uh trying to engage us as a professional service provider job.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: All right, okay, I'll leave that one with you.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh in terms of of reuse, um I think it's a summation here of of of all of those things that we've talked about.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Really good understanding of that uh, you know, that technology marketplace.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Seek those examples of of where reuse is actually happening.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a case of well, this is reuse with 50% rebuild, you know, it's reuse with you know kind of up to 70% is is the core of what you're getting.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think understand what does that actually mean inside the business that you're in as well.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so kind of what what can you pick that's off the shelf?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: What might you need to make some tweaks with?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Just try and understand where those things actually fit together.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's putting together quite a sophisticated jigsaw puzzle here, but ultimately um there's a lot of um assets that are out there across the wider public sector where you can pick those things up and reuse.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: So try and understand what is the what does it look like across the pitch, yeah.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, so from an early engagement perspective, um understand where what you need from the business.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh sorry, I keep saying it, but it it genuinely it's so important to have a view on on where the future may well be.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Understand the technology, be involved in, understand your peers in the marketplace, what have they done, what's been delivered, how has it been delivered, who have they delivered it with, how successful was that delivery?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, kind of we talked earlier on about handover.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how successful was the project all the way through?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, where was the project that didn't feel like it was get to the end and flick a switch and you know, cross your fingers and your toes and hope?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, who actually delivered a product uh or an outcome, a series of outcomes on that technology platform that you're you're looking at and did it really well.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: What examples are they giving you?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um look at where uh with with some of those peers that you'll be engaged with, their thoughts around you know where they think they can take the technology solution as well, how they are looking at what their next iterations are of the technology that they use.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think these things are really important.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: That gives you that that that broad brush.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I think from there it's about really understanding with the tech vendors, with your professional services partner, um, who feels comfortable, who's actually presenting you with a solution that isn't just uh here's what we did uh for ex other customer.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like we did this over here, but actually, this is what that means for you is this.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's take, you know, it's it's a little bit of a salzy answer, but it's taking what's been delivered elsewhere, understanding how it's going to be repurposed, and seeing a vendor that can actually put that in the language that you can understand.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is super important because you'll know if it's the right vendor that you're working with and the right professional services partner that you're working with because they're using the terms that you feel comfortable with.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's a really good point.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a really good point to wrap up on.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, thanks for that, Nick.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was a really useful, insightful uh conversation, and I hope people got value out of some of the snippets of of experience and advice you've given today.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, like we said last time, if any of this sounds familiar, if any of the things you want to discuss today, please do reach out to Digital Modus.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're happy to have the conversation.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think next week we will be talking around the Procurement Act 2023 and also looking at what's the implications for that for our customers, what are the things, some of the things you should be looking out for as you're starting to go out to market.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, also, how can you ensure you're driving compliance against that through tooling, through the right advice?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like I said, if any of that sounds familiar, please do get in contact.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to say thank you for tuning in to the public sector tech debrief, and we'll see you next time.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Bye bye.