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The easy to adopt, easy to use and
easy to leave, assured cloud services
company, has offered its range of
cloud solutions via G-Cloud since the
framework first went live in 2012.
The firm says its credentials and
expertise are second to none when it
comes to supporting partners make
great G-Cloud submissions that stand
out from the competition.
According to the Government’s digital
marketplace blog, suppliers are able
to apply to offer their services through
G-Cloud 9 (G9) from March 2017 and G9
services are expected to be available to buy
on the digital marketplace in May.
A single iteration of G-Cloud
Since G-Cloud 2, two iterations of the
G-Cloud framework have run in parallel
- G9 will replace G-Cloud 7 (G7) and
G-Cloud 8 (G8). For suppliers, this means
that they must apply for G9 to continue
selling their G-Cloud services on the digital
marketplace - G7 and G8 services will
be removed from the digital marketplace
when G9 services go live.
For buyers, this means that no new
procurements for G8 services can start
after the date that G-Cloud 9 services
go and any G8 procurements already
underway must be completed by the
framework’s expiry date on 28 July 2017.
Increased support
UKCloud’s partner programme is a
structured comprehensive framework with
numerous rewards based upon the tier of
partner agreement – partner or preferred
partner. The company launched a revamped
channel partner programme in November
2016, which offers both new and existing
partners increased support with access to
technical, marketing and sales expertise,
giving them the best possible chance of
success.
To date, it has helped approximately
120 partner organisations onto the
G-Cloud Framework and the company has
supported more than 465 partner projects
across the UK public sector.
CEO Simon Hansford said: “As a
longstanding ardent G-Cloud supporter
and supplier, having sold our cloud services
through the framework since the very
beginning, we’re fully committed to helping
new partners on-board and continuing our
extensive support for our existing partners.”
IT companies seeking to break into
the UK public sector market must be
familiar with and overcome very specific
requirements when it comes to assurance,
connectivity and commercial governance.
UKCloud partners not only benefit from
the firm’s fully accredited platform, but
also have access to a dedicated G-Cloud
9 check list, a free ‘How to Submit’ guide
and a Q&A forum, which provides detailed
help and support around achieving
the necessary security credentials, and
answering the extensive security questions
which are part of the submission process
for G-Cloud 9.
“We expect G-Cloud 9 to be the best
UKCloud, is actively recruiting new channel partners to collaborate
on new public sector business via the G-Cloud 9 tender’s latest iteration
UKCloud ramps up
partner recruitment
iteration yet, thanks to the extensive
consultations carried out by the Government
Digital Service and Crown Commercial
Service,” Hansford stated. “G-Cloud 9 has
a renewed emphasis on suppliers’ security
credentials, improves the buyer journey
through granular service categorisation,
and has easy to understand terms and
conditions, which are still robust. We expect
these innovative changes to attract even
more buyers than before, from a wider range
of market sectors than before”.
He added: “With more than 230 like-
minded channel partners and hundreds
of successful joint projects to date, we’re
committed to continuing this momentum.
Our channel partner programme has
always been a vital part of our business
model and we look forward to achieving
further collaborations via G-Cloud 9.”
The combination of a range of solutions
designed specifically for UK public sector
requirements, together with exceptional
compliance, service performance and
support credentials, confirm UKCloud’s
position to support public sector digital
transformation and its customers who
deliver critical services to citizens.
Value for money
UKCloud also provides value for money,
in January this year, it announced its tenth
round of price reductions across two of
its most popular services: Cloud Storage,
which provides a cost-effective storage
repository for a variety of sensitive data
assets, including body worn video and
medical data, and Enterprise Compute
Cloud, a VMware powered cloud platform
that provides reliable and flexible hosting
of a variety of virtual machines and
customer workloads.
The reductions applied to both the
internet connected Assured OFFICIAL
cloud platform, as well as UKCloud’s
Elevated OFFICIAL cloud platform, which
provides the scalability and flexibility of a
genuine cloud platform in the lower risk
environment of public sector networks.
The result of significant economies of
scale and investment in hyper-converged
infrastructure, the price reductions
coincided with price hikes elsewhere in the
industry, particularly from US corporations.
PARTNER RECRUITMENT
G-Cloud 9 has
a renewed
emphasis on
suppliers’
security
credentials,
improves the
buyer journey
through
granular
service
categorisation,
and has easy
to understand
terms and
conditions,
which are still
robust.
