Case Study: WA Department of Education, LIFT Alliance

Problem

Having primarily delivered managed services, Kinetic IT needed to pivot to enhance its service capability when tendering for a large, end-to-end enterprise managed services contract.

Solution

Kinetic IT leveraged its long-standing relationships and existing collaborations with current suppliers to the WA Department of Education, as well as across the market, to form a consortium that would be successful and address the strategic procurement objectives of the customer.

Outcome

The LIFT Alliance was formed. Led by Kinetic IT, the LIFT Alliance focuses on delivering the WA Department of Education’s strategic objectives and ICT vision as well as servicing the education sector across Australia.

Customer Background

As one of the WA Department of Education’s strategic delivery partners for technology services since 1997, Kinetic IT has deep, intimate knowledge of the largest public education jurisdiction in the world.

In late 2020, the Department went to the market to seek out a supply arrangement which supported its digital transformation roadmap, including consolidating 15 ICT contracts into a single-line-of-sight agreement.

Kinetic IT stepped up to the challenge, leveraging specialist in-house knowledge and its relationships across the Australian IT sector, partnering with the national group NRI and local niche providers Campfire, and Systemic to successfully secure the Department’s continued partnership for another 11 years.

• Scope: Kinetic IT realised from the start it could not deliver on the key objectives of the proposed contract on its own. With 15 ICT contracts being rolled into one, there was a wide scope of work that needed to be covered.
• Siloed Working: Having primarily delivered managed services to the Department, Kinetic IT had limited exposure to the work being undertaken by other incumbents.
• Knowledge Loss: The loss of years of business knowledge from other incumbent suppliers that would be difficult to replicate.
• ICT Transformation Considerations: In addition to strategic procurement objectives, the Department had a detailed ICT transformation roadmap that it expected the successful organisation to have experience and capabilities in.

The Solution

Knowing what the Department sought to achieve through a single-line-of-sight agreement, Kinetic IT leveraged partnerships with existing suppliers to the Department as well as across the market to propose a consortium approach. Like a jigsaw, the necessary pieces soon fell into place. Kinetic IT, NRI, Campfire, and Systemic duly became the LIFT Alliance.

By putting the customer’s needs at the forefront, identifying the great outcomes that could be achieved for the customer, and therefore students, the LIFT Alliance allows all parties to work co-operatively instead of as competitors. Each partner brings specialist knowledge and skills to the table; the consortium approach allows for greater collaboration for the end user and bolsters the skillsets of IT professionals in the Western Australian market.

Kinetic IT‘s responsibility is to recognise that a mutually respectful and beneficial partnership is required for long term service delivery effectiveness. To build on the foundations that have now been established, the leaders of all contributing organisations have developed the LIFT Alliance Charter to ensure the ideals of the partnerships are well defined, agreed and communicated to all parties.

The charter contains a vision and mission for the Alliance which unites the members to continually strive for the betterment of the Department. Helping achieve these goals is a team which is 100% Australian founded, living and working as members of the same communities to which the Department provides its essential services.

Kinetic IT, as the prime lead of the consortium, has a Subcontractor Framework that stipulates a clear delineation of accountabilities and responsibilities and an appropriate level of governance. This is pivotal as it enables a cost-effective service that maximises the value of all LIFT Alliance members, whilst maintaining appropriate oversight. This allocation of entire functions of work enables delegation to subcontractors from Kinetic IT as prime. This is coupled with a best practice process, and a well-communicated and empowered team of skilled, capable individuals resulting in a functional and capable organisation. The Subcontractor Framework is built on three pillars:

• Clear responsibility: Whilst Kinetic IT will have ultimate accountability for all services, the allocation of the service tower bundles across delivery outlines the clear responsibility and contribution from all the Alliance members.
• Organisational structure & defined accountability: As prime,
  Kinetic IT has overall leadership of the contract, however, senior roles also reside with Alliance members. Each role has the appropriate levels of accountability and delegation of authority across the respective service. This assures the Department that each partner has the appropriate level of ‘skin in the game’ to continually deliver successful outcomes.
• Governance Framework: Kinetic IT’s Governance Framework includes the required governance forums, meetings and relationship mechanisms between all members of the LIFT Alliance to assure the ongoing successful delivery of services to the Department.

The principles that were agreed to as an Alliance have been applied from initial engagement and will continue to underpin our engagement throughout the evaluation process and into delivery. These principles will be used to guide the combined workforce assigned to the Department, setting a consistent standard around the behaviours and practices that will be demonstrated across the entire group.

The Outcome

By working collaboratively, the LIFT Alliance offered the Department of Education a solution that provides end-to-end IT services including user experience, technical advice, solutions development, application management service and infrastructure managed services.

It is still early days, but the transition to a single consortium is already starting to deliver positive results as individual members of the Alliance continue to grow to function as a unit.

Regular stand ups and meetings between LIFT Alliance partners are creating an information sharing culture. Issues are surfaced, trends identified and raised before they become problems. This is reflected at the team level, with staff with similar functions and skill sets grouping together. Sharing co-working space, for example, has helped create the LIFT Alliance’s culture across the four provider organisations. One of the key tools used to ensure all strategic partners within the LIFT Alliance work in a mutually beneficial fashion is the LIFT Alliance Charter. The LIFT Alliance’s four established organisations collaborated to build the charter, which provides all its people with a clear vision and mission statements, as well as principles.

Through the LIFT Alliance, Kinetic IT worked to design a customer driven experience and solution with the Department’s strategic objectives and ICT vision front of mind. The LIFT Alliance showcases Kinetic IT’s ability to adapt, thrive and survive in a changing market, to work with its competitors, and share its industry expertise and resources in a dynamic way that achieves more significant results.

• Cost Efficient: The LIFT Alliance solution provided a significant cost saving, simply from the perspective of having a single contract and supplier to manage.
• Innovative: An embedded approach allows for more innovative ideas from LIFT Alliance stakeholders.
• Collaborative: The inherent collaboration across the LIFT Alliance in response to requirements now results in a single, complete and efficient project engagement and delivery.
• Reduced Risk: The LIFT Alliance is comprised of the Department’s incumbent suppliers, which inherently eliminates the risk of business knowledge loss, further providing assurance of service stability.

Meet the LIFT ALLIANCE

The LIFT Alliance is a collaboration between specialist technology providers serving the WA Department of Education. Kinetic IT, NRI, Campfire and Systemic have joined forces with a commitment to deliver Local, Innovative, Flexible and Tailored technology solutions.