Life In The Digital Marketplace, 5: Total Intelligence, Newbury

Feb 05, 2016

Why would a company come off and on the Marketplace? BI for the NHS provider Total Intelligence, in the shape of its Director, Chris Finch, shares an interesting perspective

Please ell us about your company and its value proposition, Chris.

We formed Total Intelligence three and a half years ago as we saw an opportunity to provide a more affordable, smarter business intelligence solution into the Health sector which could be deployed either as a cloud or an on premise solution.

Our first major customer, NHS Pathways (part of HSCIC), was looking to deploy a reporting/BI solution within an internal Cloud that was relatively simple to develop and use, economic and scalable. Since then, we have also implemented our solution, MI View, into a number of health sector Out of Hours organisations looking to move beyond basic spreadsheet reporting, which itself was becoming unsustainable having to cope with the accelerating need for information from the Commissioners of such services.

Why did you enter onto the G-Cloud/The Digital Marketplace? What did you expect to get out of it? And did you?

We realised a high proportion of public sector procurement business appeared to be done through Framework agreements. Traditionally, these Frameworks have mitigated against SMEs because of a number of factors (e.g. needlessly complex PQQs, the size of a company, number of years trading etc.). If you were just starting out, franly the chance of getting on one of these in your own right was almost zero.

G-Cloud did away with all that, basically, as it opened up the opportunity for the public sector to look and procure innovative solutions from any company (big or even micro) that had a solution fit for purpose: as long as your organisation was open and transparent, the buyer could assess whether you provided a compelling value for any given solution. So yes, we did manage to benefit, as it allowed our largest customer to procure our product through the G-Cloud 4 & 6 frameworks, which saved everybody time and money.

How have things been working out for you on the Marketplace?

As previously stated, it has worked out well for us, because our largest customer was required to procure off a Framework. Athe seame time, although we have widely publicised our inclusion in the G-Cloud initiative, it has yet to generate any leads... but that was not our expectation, so just being part of the initiative is fine for us at the moment.

Based on your experience, do you have any top tips for other (smaller) suppliers on how to make the most of the G-Cloud opportunity?

My suggestion to those thinking about getting on G-Cloud is the following: if you intend to supply into the public sector or are already doing so, join the Digital Marketplace (assuming you have the appropriate delivery platform). However, do not do it on the basis the orders will flow in, they almost certainly won’t! Nevertheless, it’s still a useful marketing tool and a pain-free enabler for anyone in the public sector who wants to use a quick and simple procurement process.

Thanks! Any other thoughts about what you see as the future for cloud as a delivery mechanism for UK public services?

I have only anecdotal evidence for the whole of the public sector, as we have concentrated on Health - but much of the public sector seems to be in the Ark when it comes to the use of ‘cutting edge’ or smart technology. There are of course islands of excellence within the sector, but I think there are massive opportunities for the use of Cloud-based services, due to the potential to reduce costs and increase application flexibility that can result in the use of the Cloud.

I hope that happens. Thanks and good luck on G-Cloud 7!

To find out more about this G-Cloud-7 supplier, go here

We are looking for other companies enjoying success on the Digital Marketplace and would love to feature your experiences in this new on-going editorial series. Please get in touch with us here to kick start that process.