Bramble Hub partner CloudSource has been shortlisted for a prestigious Public Sector innovation award.
The winners will be announced on July 7th at the Public Sector Alliance Awards ceremony, which “celebrate the finest advances across the UK and reward innovative and exceptional use of technology, processes and transformation initiatives”. CloudSource is a finalist in the Digital Service Modernisation category. The ceremony will be held at the Dorchester Hotel in London.
Bramble Hub partner CloudSource, in partnership with Microsoft, recently ran a conference aimed at the UK regulatory sector. Titled “Unlocking Digital Regulation”, the event took place at Microsoft’s London offices.
The event, which was also supported by the Better Regulation Executive and the UK Regulators’ Network (UKRN), ran for one day, and was attended by representatives of key UK public sector regulators, including the education regulator Ofsted and The Pensions Regulator.
A UKRN speaker explored the challenges faced today by regulators, while Microsoft discussed their latest emerging cloud technologies, and speakers from CloudSource spoke about project successes in the regulatory space, where CloudSource has been particularly successful in recent years.
Highlights from the event can be viewed at CloudSource’s site.
The partnership between Bramble Hub and CloudSource has successfully delivered projects to regulators including The Nursing and Midwifery Council, the Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) and The Pensions Regulator.
CloudSource is a London-headquartered Microsoft Solutions Partner that specialises in providing Digital Transformation, Strategy, and Delivery services to Public Sector organisations. CloudSource’s technology excellence with Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Azure Services, coupled with the knowledge of Regulatory, Compliance, and Transparency business processes, make them a powerful partner for UK Public Sector organisations who need to meet today’s digital expectations.
The company was formed in 2010, with their business heavily based on providing Microsoft expertise to their customers. As it grew, CloudSource brought a wealth of key expertise on board, including (in 2015) CTO Ashish Kapoor, and – the following year – project delivery specialist Ed Pearce. In 2017, CloudSource became a Bramble Hub partner, which brought the company’s expertise within easier reach of public sector buyers.
As a partnership, we have won a series of significant projects over the past five years. So we recently sat down with CloudSource’s Managing Director, Mark Williams, to discuss half a dozen of our successful project deliveries. These projects were delivered via a range of Crown Commercial Service frameworks, including Data and Application Solutions, Corporate Software Solutions (now closed), G-Cloud and Digital Outcomes and Specialists.
Among our early joint projects was an Internet of Things (IoT) project for HS2, the huge project intended to bring Britain’s railways into the 21st Century. CloudSource was tasked with creating a solution that monitored environmental quality at HS2 building sites via a plethora of IoT devices that collected on-site data. The data was collected and put into Microsoft Azure. CloudSource then built a dashboard that allowed thresholds and alerts to be managed, so that HS2 could maintain acceptable levels of pollutants, noise and vibration. Mark says: “No such solution existed off the shelf: we had to do the R&D, and build it from scratch”.
The MOTS project has been a great success for the CloudSource / Bramble Hub partnership. From the start, the scope of the project was ambitious: “Lots of line-of-business systems, lots of data, hundreds of users”, says Mark.
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“We were replatforming all of their business responsibilities onto Dynamics 365, Azure and Power Platform. Our knowledge of those technologies, coupled with our knowledge of the regulation industry won this for us.””
Since that first win two years ago, the NMC has awarded us a number of further project extensions, the most recent phase having been awarded in recent weeks.
Ofwat has been another repeat customer, and another demonstration of CloudSource’s vertical strength in regulation. The initial project, awarded in 2019 was to migrate an on-premises Microsoft system into Dynamics 365 and the cloud. “What we did was about replatforming business processes into the cloud, retiring on-prem systems in the process. As with all of our projects, we took an Agile/Scrum approach, using MS Project and Azure DevOps,” explains Mark.
Although a relatively small project, the Defra-funded creation of a one stop shop for government regulators helped put CloudSource on the map. The project created a centralized portal for customers that intelligently transferred each request to the right organization.
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“The significant aspect of that project was the cross-department aspect. We showed that we could work with multiple government departments, which aren’t always great at working together. The project really boosted our profile as a regulator specialist – at the moment, a hundred percent of our pipeline is regulatory”
Pensions regulator
CloudSource advised the Pensions Regulator on migrating to a cloud platform. “That was about assessing their technology to be migrated to Microsoft cloud and advising on their roadmap, pointing out the pitfalls, so they could do it themselves,” Mark says. “It was a pre-project phase, where we asked ‘Are these the right systems, are we barking up the right tree?’ We bridged a skills shortage, and supplied skills they didn’t have internally in order to get the project off the ground.”
The PPF’s role is to take control of pension schemes for organisations that go into liquidation. In 2021, CloudSource worked on a project to modernise the PPF’s pension scheme assessment process.
For Mark Williams, CloudSource’s track record is testament to the strength of their specialisms in Microsoft technologies, coupled with their ongoing accumulation of knowledge about the business of regulation. Without Bramble Hub, and our thin-prime model, it would be hard for public sector buyers to access the skills of small and medium expert businesses like CloudSource.
He concludes that “… working with Bramble Hub has been key to building our business by providing a path to access many high-profile public sector clients, guided by Bramble Hub’s invaluable experience and sector expertise.”
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The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has extended its Modernisation of Technology Services (MOTS) programme, and awarded the next phase of the project (phase 3a) to a partnership of Bramble Hub and our partner CloudSource.
This marks the fourth phase of MOTS; we have been working on the project since its inception almost two years ago.
The NMC is the largest healthcare regulatory body in the world, with over 685,000 nurses and midwives, and played a key role in in the emergency recruitment of medical staff during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The project was awarded under the G-Cloud 12 framework.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has awarded a contract to Bramble Hub and our partner CloudSource for the development of a client-facing portal.
The work will be carried out using Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, in order to build the following functionality:
The services will be delivered remotely, and include business analysis, project management, application testing, and cutover / go-live support. The contract also includes 12 months of ongoing support, and was awarded under the Crown Commercial Service G-Cloud Services Framework.
Defra is the government department with the responsibility for improving and protecting the environment, growing a green economy and sustaining thriving rural communities. The department also supports the food, farming and fishing industries.
CloudSource is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner with over a decade of experience, and a focus on Digital Transformation, Strategy and Delivery. The company guides organisations to achieve their full digital potential through harnessing the power of Microsoft Cloud Technology with Azure, Dynamics 365, Office 365 and the Power Platform.
Bramble Hub and our partner CloudSource have been awarded a further contract to continue work on the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC’s) Modernisation of Technology Services Programme (MOTS). This award marks the third phase of MOTS, which began at the start of 2021.
CloudSource will provide a range of skills to the NMC including project management, architecture, development and testing.
The contract was awarded under the G-Cloud 12 framework.
The NMC is the largest healthcare regulatory body in the world, with over 685,000 nurses and midwives, and played a key role in in the emergency recruitment of medical staff during the Covid-19 pandemic.
CloudSource’s CEO, Mark Williams comments:
“It has been a fantastic opportunity for CloudSource to partner with the Nursing and Midwifery Council on their journey to become a digital regulator.
The Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Azure solution that has been implemented will no doubt be a key enabler for their future organisation.”
The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has awarded a contract to Bramble Hub and our partner CloudSource to assess options for the delivery of a new case management system. The project’s goal is to determine whether an existing system (built using OpenText Documentum) should be rebuilt using Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365). The project is anticipated to take around two months, with an option to extend it by an additional four months.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a customer relationship management (CRM) solution, incorporating AI, which enables organisations to manage their stakeholder relationships. CloudSource is a Gold Microsoft Partner with extensive experience in delivering D365 solutions.
The Pensions Regulator is the public body with the responsibility for overseeing workplace pensions. It is based in Brighton and has around 800 staff. Its five core goals are:
The Bramble Hub / CloudSource proposal was ranked highest of the five proposals submitted. The contract was awarded under the Digital Outcomes and Specialists 5 framework.
