Blogs

Does change management theory help when a project isn’t going well? No? Then what does?

It’s relatively easy to identify why a project is failing to deliver the desired benefits - much harder to put it right. And despite the many change management books and self-appointed change management ‘experts’ out there, it’s usually not the principles of managing change, but how you implement it - the detailed, hands-on practice - that makes a difference. And it’s our experience at eXceeding is that the devil is always in the detail.

Most companies are outsourcing some or all of their IT software, systems, infrastructure and the services that sit on them, or at least looking at the perceived cost advantages of doing so. Moving over to a lower costing Cloud-based service is very tempting. But trying to compare the offerings from different service providers is like comparing apples and oranges.

For a start there are three different types of Cloud-based services:

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). 

Do you need to find an alternative supplier?

We learned last week that the systems integrator 2e2 group has gone into administration, leaving many UK organizations without a secure future outsourcing partner.

If you are affected by this development, we’d like to help.

As the IT outsourcing market slumps to 10-year low, with contract values down 34%  on the same period last year, we read with interest that 96% of Heads of IT are unhappy with the outsourced IT contracts they had negotiated and plan to retender or renegotiate at least one of their IT outsourcing deals. (‘IT Outsourcing Relationships in Need of an Upgrade?’ 22/4/13).

Most organisations now face a major crossroads when their infrastructure platform needs upgrading or reaches the end of its life - at least in the manufacturer’s eyes (yes, we know that's in their interest). In years gone by, the decision was to buy an updated version of the current manufacturer’s platform, or switch vendors. Nowadays, however, you have another option: instead of installing new servers and internal networks on your premises, you can opt for Cloud hosting.

So you’ve put the significant time and investment into responding to a tender, managed to submit within the deadline, but how prepared are you going to be when the client likes what you have put forward and invites you to the tender presentation stage?

As the end of 2015 fast approaches, many people are looking forward to a small break over the Christmas period and taking stock of what’s been achieved over the last 12 months.

Hi, my name is Arthur Keighley and I’m a novice when it comes to the art of Bid writing. 

Responding to complex tenders is no longer the sole domain of the large enterprise sized companies.  In recent years the UK government has launched several initiatives with a view to encouraging Small & Medium sized Enterprises take part in the competitive tender response process. 

Writing a tender or PQQ response within prescribed page, character or word limits can be challenging and frustrating.  It can be even worse if the question and evaluation criteria ask for a response to a large number of points or if you feel that the topic in question simply cannot be condensed into such a short space.