The Cadence Partnership Service Definition About Cadence The Cadence Partnership is an independent management consultancy, specialising in working with a wide range of organisations, solving complex issues to leave a lasting positive legacy. It is a woman-owned SME organisation working in the public and private sectors. We work with public sector clients to understand their service strategies, provide programme and project management and specific transition and management services across major change, Cloud and traditional IT implementation. Cadence was founded in 2007 by three highly experienced management consultants who now operate as the partners. We work with a network of experienced associates delivering results to fit our clients needs. Through our consistent achievement of successful outcomes, we have established long term relationships with our clients. Being part of the team is important to us, and the outcomes achieved by our clients are our outcomes. Doing the right thing is important to us and this is reflected in our values: Passion and commitment to delivering with our clients to achieve their goals Agility, pragmatism and an outcomes focused approach Experience and professionalism Independence and objectivity Collaboration with our clients to enable sustainable change Our Services The Cadence Partnership is broad-based management consultancy, able to support organisations through wide-ranging change; our main offerings with respect to adoption and use of Cloud services are: Board level advisory services, including technology strategy, Cloud approach, adoption and transition strategy; Enabling clients to maximise opportunities from Cloud / commodity services and working with frameworks including: o G-Cloud; and Page 1
o PSN; Development of procurement strategies including the creation of public contracts and frameworks such as G-Cloud and supporting the evolution of PSN and the GDS Digital Services Framework; Business change and end-to-end programme management services including: o Commodity Service and Cloud Adoption and Transition programme and project management; o Programme office management and support; o Benefits realisation; o Culture and people change; and o Operating model design and implementation. Programme Delivery turn-around and independent assessment; and Implementation and Operational Support. Specifically for G-Cloud, our Cloud Service Offerings are divided into four services: Page 2
1. Strategy and Planning The Strategy and Planning offering helps our clients formulate the right business strategy to meet their vision. We use our Strategy Realisation methodology to help our clients understand and articulate their strategic direction, develop a robust business blueprint, with the right organisational capabilities to meet their aims and priorities from the strategy, and establish clear implementation approaches. In relation to cloud our Strategy and Planning service focuses on the potential of commodity and cloud based business models and solutions, along with how cloud and commodity services can be adopted within existing business strategies. We also help our clients assess their current portfolio of services and identify the right adoption strategy for their business including how to exploit Cloud (IaaS, PaaS and SaaS) services. At Cadence, our vision for the G-Cloud is that it enables government to freely exploit commodity ICT services through the use of Cloud Computing technologies. Exploiting commodity information and communications technologies (ICT) services means moving from high-cost customised IT applications and solutions to low cost, standard, interchangeable services where quality and cost is driven by the market. It means changing the culture of government to adopt and adapt to the solutions the market provides and not creating bespoke approaches. Our consultants have experience of developing business and service strategies that reflect the opportunities of commodity services and the Cloud, with a thorough understanding of current constraints, both internal and external. Through agreeing a business strategy for the organisation that includes commodity and cloud provision, Cadence also helps our clients establish achievable implementation programmes that take account of the strategy, the organisations priorities and market conditions and maturity. 2. Programme Management and Commercial Management The Cadence Partnership has a proven track-record for supporting our clients through complex commercial negotiations to achieve pragmatic and effective supplier relationships. We work with the client, understanding their needs before supporting them through all stages of commercial planning and negotiation. For adoption of new business models including commodity services and Cloud solutions, there are often complex, lengthy and costly existing service provision arrangements to understand and Page 3
plan the best transition from. The adoption of G-Cloud solutions then relies on maintaining flexibility and commodity through the new commercial arrangements. It also requires a commodity culture to be established in the marketplace, with suppliers of the services adhering to core set of principles that encourage and support government s use of cloud services. Cadence s view of the Cloud market is based on ten key principles: i. Transparency: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should explain their information handling practices and disclose the performance and reliability of their services on their public Web sites. ii. Use Limitation: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should claim no ownership rights in customer data and should use customer data only as their customers instruct them, or to fulfil their contractual or legal obligations. iii. Disclosure: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should disclose customer data only if required to do so by the customer or by law, and should provide affected customers prior notice of any legally compelled disclosure to the extent permissible by law. iv. Security Management System: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should maintain a robust security management system that is based on an internationally accepted information assurance framework (such as ISO 27002) to protect customer data. v. Customer Security Features: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should provide their customers with a selection of security features to implement in their usage of the cloud computing services. vi. Data Location: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should make available to their customers a list of countries in which their customer data related to them is hosted. vii. Breach Notification: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should notify customers of known security breaches that affect the confidentiality or integrity of their customer data promptly. viii. Audit: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should use third-party auditors to ensure compliance with their security management system and with these principles. ix. Data Portability: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should make available to customers their respective customer data in an industry-standard, downloadable format. x. Accountability: Companies that provide enterprise cloud computing platforms should work with their customers to designate appropriate roles for privacy and security accountability. Page 4
These are key factors to consider when approaching the Cloud marketplace, although this will be somewhat mitigated through the use of the Government Applications Store which ensures providers meet basic criteria. By using these guiding principles, Cadence is able to help our clients establish good partnerships with the Cloud service providers while instilling the basis of commodity service. 3. Organisational Design, Target Operating Model and Business Change Adoption of any new strategy, including adoption of commodity services and cloud ICT, is more than simple replacement of IT, or change of processes. At Cadence we specialise in helping our clients understand and change their organisation to realise their strategy. We provide experienced professionals who are able to quickly understand the context of the change, lead complex organisational design and business change activities. Specifically, Cadence offers: Organisation Development and Design. Using our Strategy Realisation methodology, we are able to help organisations understand the implications of the change, such as adoption of commodity or cloud-based services, and develop a business blueprint to develop the required business capabilities to exploit the new strategy. This includes the detailed change to people, process and enabling ICT services, along with identifying and scoping the interventions required to implement the change. Cadence also are able to support provision linguistic anthropology, helping understand how communication amongst teams and individuals can improve organisational effectiveness. Target Operating Model (TOM) Design. We specialise in designing, developing and deploying new business models, ensuring that the right organisational components, supported with the right skills, processes and commodity services are in place to allow the organisation to meet its aims and priorities. This includes an in-depth understanding of the right models for cloud and commodity service adoption. Business Change Support. A tailored range of services to deliver the required change interventions to support organisations through the adoption and realisation of their new strategy. This includes business process excellence support, capability, skills and role development, communications, training and broader culture change. Page 5
4. Implementation and Transition Moving a traditional service to a new business model, such as Cloud provision, can be a significant undertaking. However, with the right strategy and roadmap, and good commercial partnerships in place the final element is the implementation of the service. Cadence provides experienced project and programme managers, business analysts and service managers to support our clients through implementation and transition. This comes at two key stages of Cloud service adoption: initial adoption and transition from one Cloud service to another. A key element of Cloud implementations is the ability to quickly adopt and implement and to switch the service if a better, more competitive option becomes available. However, SaaS and some PaaS services are by their nature more embedded into business process and day-to-day operations than IaaS and this affects the case for change, the approach and effort for implementation and transition. The Cadence Partnership is able to help our clients understand the impact on their business and correctly plan and undertake the change. Typically, a Cloud Service Implementation and Transition would include the following elements: i. Business Readiness Assessment Ensuring that the organisation is prepared for the change, including skills and adoption assessment. ii. On-Boarding / Off-Boarding Planning The commodity nature of Cloud services means that an essential element of any implementation or transition project is the standardisation of the on-boarding plan (i.e. the steps and activities required to introduce the service), and the off-boarding plan (the steps required to remove the service). These plans cover all necessary elements of the transition including architecture and server access, data access and migration, standards, and service management; iii. Reference Implementation a reference service is established in order to refine and test the architecture, functions, data and security etc. A reference service is essential for complex transitions to ensure that all the aspects of the final transition are understood, tested and assessed; iv. Cloud Architecture A refined service architecture learning from the Reference Implementation and agreed through the organisation s Design Authority. This ensures that the service not only meets the business needs, but is compatible with the business and future plans; v. Full Implementation, QA and Test The transition to the new Cloud Service, whether through initial Cloud adoption, or through transition via off-boarding from a previous service a new one; vi. Governance The approach to the management of the service, including commercial management and benefits tracking and realisation; Page 6
vii. viii. Business Adoption A critical aspect is the business adoption of the service where that service extends beyond virtualisation / IaaS. The organisation change aspects must be planned and implemented along with the solution; and Service Management The arrangements, initiation and on-going monitoring of the service in use. Our Clients The Cadence Partnership work with a wide range of clients across the public and private sector, from central government departments including Cabinet Office, DWP, Department of Health, Home Office and DEFRA, through to major multinational firms such as Vodafone and BAT. We also offer services for major service companies to help them better understand their client needs and improve delivery. We maintain in-depth understanding of the G-Cloud having supported the formation of the G-Cloud strategy and implementation planning in early 2011. Our clients value our independence and broad experience. We are able to offer advice and solutions that they can trust and help them recognise and achieve benefit from major change. Page 7