ATO kicks off round two on AU$1bn outsourcing deal
The Australian Tax Office is today briefing would-be suppliers on what it expects from those hoping to bag the end-user computing component of its AU$1 billion infrastructure outsourcing deals.
Around 148 representatives from 69 vendors will sit in on today's briefing in Canberra. The end-user computing bundle includes mobile device management, service desk, service management and printer management and is the second of three infrastructure bundles worth a combined total of around AU$1 billion over five years.
The ATO's CIO Bill Gibson is absent from today's briefing, according to an ATO spokesperson. In his place Narelle Dotta, who leads the ATO's ICT sourcing strategy team, will brief vendors.
The ATO last month announced it had selected CSC Australia, Dimension Data, Optus and Telstra to participate in the ATO's workshop process for the managed network services deal — a contract worth AU$55,000 per year. Notably missing from the shortlist was incumbent EDS, which has dominated the ATO's infrastructure deals for the past decade.
Gibson has previously said that he expects just five vendors to have the scale required by the ATO to win each of the three contracts.
He has also said he expects managing multiple vendors to be a challenge for the suppliers themselves as well as the ATO.
"We've got a lot to do in terms of getting ourselves ready as to how we govern the suppliers," Gibson recently told ZDNet.com.au.
"Some vendors who didn't like to work together in the past will now have to work together, because they will be providing complementary services," he added.