Deal lasting two years will see technology giant provide a range of support and integration services during a period when many Oracle systems are to be retained, retired or revamped
The Ministry of Defence has signed a £30m-plus contract with tech giant IBM for the provision of support for various civilian and commercial IT systems.
As of the start of this month, the ministry entered into an initial two-year engagement with the company. The deal addresses “digital information and technology professional services support”, according to recently published commercial documents.
The text of the contract reveals that IBM has been retained to provide technical support and integration services for IT platforms related to: planning, budgeting, and forecasting; contracting and procurement; civilian HR and back-office systems; and other ancillary internal MoD services.
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The systems in scope of the contract include a core Oracle payroll, expenses and HR system, alongside “a number of bespoke ancillary systems developed using Oracle tools [which] are currently under review”. Over the course of the two-year contract support deal, the MoD’s Defence Business Services (DBS) unit will decide whether these tools are “retained, retired, refactored, rehosted or rearchitected”.
The documents reveals that IBM will deliver services such as “sustaining existing architecture through an evergreening approach and assessing and delivering the large portfolio of transformational and business-as-usual change to meet the continuously evolving defence requirements”.
The technology vendor will also be expected to provide “knowledge transfer” to the ministry’s Defence Business Services (DBS) unit which, “given the size and complexity of the organisation and the systems in place, [has] a deficit in in-house resources, both in terms of skill and capacity”, the contract says.
The deal is valued at £27m, plus VAT of around £5.4m and can be extended for a further 12 months at the MoD’s discretion.
