Thames Water is inviting suppliers to register with its IS Smaller Application Development Register - intended to support a separate framework from which major IS application development and system integration project work will be sourced worth more than an estimated £200 million over 5 years.

Thames Water Utilities Ltd has implemented a register (FA1227) for application development and system integration project work.

The total spend on IS development work at Thames Water has been estimated at over £200 million over 5 years, across both the register (FA1227) and the framework (FA1225). The exact proportion of spend that will be sourced via the register is currently unknown.

The work could cover any facet of IS project delivery, system integration and associated services for current and legacy systems including:

• Service strategy, IT strategy, technical advice and planning
• Enterprise architecture planning
• Process improvement and design
• Feasibility analysis and blueprinting
• Requirements analysis
• Solution design
• Data management and information management
• Information security management
• IT asset management
• Programme and project management
• System integration
• Business continuity management and IT disaster recovery management,
• Transition into ‘business-as-usual’ operations (and potentially application support and service hosting).

Successful bidders would become part of the Thames Water IS Development Pool Register. While being on the register does not guarantee work for  suppliers, it will enable them to bid for individual projects of future work. Thames Water also reserves the right to bring in other 3rd parties due to expertise or urgency.

The Register has no set expiry date at present, but Thames Water said this may be subject to change if unforeseen changes to the business occur or the projected spend profile significantly changes.

Thames is now requesting expressions of interest for places on the register – click here to access the qualification notice.

Seven firms win Applications Development and System Integration framework

Last month Thames Water awarded Lot 1of the FA1225 IS Applications Development and System Integration framework to four UK- headquartered firms - Accenture (UK) Ltd,  CapGemini UK PLC, CGI IT UK Ltd and  Deloitte MCS Ltd, together with three Indian-headquartered companies Wipro Ltd, Tech Mahindra Ltd and TATA Consultancy Services Ltd.

The suppliers will implement new business applications and associated processes undertake major changes to current and legacy applications and deliver associated infrastructure solutions over the next 2 to 5 years. The total spend going through the framework includes projects ranging in value from £500,000 to £75 million.

The successful suppliers were required to demonstrate a financial annual turnover of £125 million to qualify for the framework.

The works under the Register are expected to be smaller or more niche pieces of IS development work.

The water company has yet to announce details of the successful bidders for Lot 2 of the framework which covers the selection of a system integrator for the customer relationship management and billing tool being implemented for TW's retail, non-household business.

Thames is seeking to implement new system solutions including Customer Relationship Management and Billing (CRB) capabilities for its non-household retail business functions and for their wholesale water and waste business functions.

It is anticipated that the systems will be required to calculate and bill charges for at least 250 000 customers (across at least 340 000 sites) and their associated measurement/usage data for a number of products and services. The system will need to be flexible to meet the changing requirements of the market and scalable to support increases in customer volumes, in-line with the upcoming business retail market in the UK.