NI Ecommerce - SR638107629

Description

Summary of the work Design build test and deploy the core microservice based E-commerce platform. Exchange and process message types with EU, Build front-end for HMRC users Separate schemes with business rules supporting registrations, returns and payments Meeting EU functional and technical requirements Collaborating with multiple teams Work with continuous integration, automated deployment, testing Expected Contract Length 12 months Latest start date Friday 1 October 2021 Budget Range GBP 4 - 5 million. Why the Work is Being Done HMRC will develop new EU VAT e-commerce systems to enable UK businesses who sell goods to consumers in EU countries to pay VAT owed via the Union One Stop Shop (OSS) for NI traders and Import One Stop Shop (IOSS) for any UK business. The UK is taking a phased approach to the introduction of these IT systems, and there will be time constraints agreed with the EU for iterative delivery, this will ensure that a full suite of IT changes for both systems within the e-commerce VAT package are delivered as soon as practicable. Problem to Be Solved Build a new microservice based One Stop Shop core application to be deployed in Elastic Kubernetes Service using Amazon Web Service. Upgrade Excite EU Gateway to NJSCI and deploy into Weblogic and AWS, enabling EMCS, ICS, EU VAT, MOSS and ITR (UK EOS) to continue to receive support from the EU and their supplier Vivansa. Who Are the Users As a VAT registered trader operating under the Northern Ireland Protocol that sells goods into the EU I wish to take advantage of the VAT ecommerce One Stop Shop scheme to enable me to pay my VAT once instead of registering in a several countries. As a UK trader, importing goods from the rest of the world into EU member states, I wish to use the import One Stop Shop so that my customers do not have to pay import VAT at customs. Early Market Engagement Not applicable Work Already Done Some pre-discovery workshops have been completed and we have a high level solution design document in place and we need to use that to define the low level design and build and deploy this application. Higher medium discovery will have been done prior to contract start, but there will still need to be detailed discovery as it is an iterative process, so discovery takes place throughout. Existing Team We have an internal HMRC team, currently supported by a third party, that is starting initial discovery but need support in architecture and devops areas. Current Phase Not applicable Skills & Experience • Microservice Development Experience (includes Java, Spring Ecosystem, no SQL and RDS database etc.) • Building Dev Ops platform in Elastic Kubernetes Service using Amazon Web Service • Experience working in agile delivery methodology • Previous government department experience • Experience working in a large integrated environment, liaising with different teams, both different delivery groups and different supplier and contractor teams • Experience of working at pace • Detailed documentation eg. run books, low level designs, test scripts • Experience of knowledge transfer to internal teams • Flexible on UK travel • Experience using WebLogic Server – 10.3.6, Oracle Service Bus 11.1.1.6 Nice to Haves • Experience of working within someone else's guidelines and frameworks • Experience of using JIRA/ Atlassian tools. • Willingness to take ownership, be held accountable and achieve a good outcome for all stakeholders through effective collaboration • Good attention to detail • Strong written and verbal communications with the ability to communicate effectively at all levels • Excellent communication skills with the ability to tailor details to business and technical audiences. • Experience using Vivansa – lxr.CCN 2.3.1 • Evidence of working within large mixed supplier environments to deliver challenging IT change. • Evidence of how you have brought in timelines and delivered Value for money. Work Location The majority of services under this agreement can be carried out remotely with supplier personnel working from home, however, supplier personnel shall be required to travel to key locations on a weekly basis including: Southend on Sea, London and Newcastle. Primary location: Alexander House, Southend on Sea, SS99 1AA Working Arrangments Supplier personnel shall attend office locations at least once a week. Normal working hours Mon - Fri, 9am - 5pm. Security Clearance Baseline Personal Security Standard required. Dev Ops resources will require Security Check clearance (c. 3 - 4 personnel). HMRC to support security clearance applications where required. Additional T&Cs HMRC Mandatory Terms No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 5 Proposal Criteria • Accountability- successful delivery of project or outcome under time constraints whilst demonstrating value for money. Operating a service to agreed standards and implementing remedial action where outcomes are not met. • Agility - delivering iteratively and incrementally within a context of evolving requirements following SCRUM and Kanban approaches • Knowledge embedding - making knowledge capture and sharing part of day to day activities. Ensuring successful handover at any required stage of a project or a service. • Delivering business value – making sure business requirements are understood, validated via positive challenge and delivered against while understanding the value being generated (i.e. business intent) • Innovative thinking – think outside the set of existing organisational constraints to arrive the most appropriate and efficient route to deliver desired outcomes • MVPs – effective definition and delivery of true MVPs that shorten time to delivering business value • Reusability by design – ensuring solutions are formulated from reusable capabilities as well as ensuring new capabilities are reusable • Simplicity by design – a clear focus on producing and positively challenging solutions to be as simple as possible • Design for minimising build and run costs • Responsive mobilisation – ability to resource work and start delivering in 4-5 weeks • Enough capacity to ensure supplier can cope with DPS demand, in the specified locations • Enough depth and breadth of capability across the supplier resource pool, in the specified locations • Supplier teams are expected to use HMRC's collaboration software like Jira, Confluence and Teams • Experience with Cloud development • Microservices design and development • Experience working in Agile framework and/or Scrum Cultural Fit Criteria • Demonstration of Social Value initiatives relating to improving health and wellbeing in the workplace • Demonstrate action to support health and wellbeing, including physical and mental health, in the contract workforce. • Influence staff, suppliers, customers and communities through the delivery of the contract to support health and wellbeing, including physical and mental health. • Understanding of issues relating to health and wellbeing, including physical and mental health, in the contract workforce. • Inclusive and accessible recruitment practices and retention focussed activities including those provided in the Guide for line managers on recruiting, managing and developing people with a disability or health condition. • Actions to invest in the physical and mental health and wellbeing of the contract workforce. • Implementing the 6 standards in the Mental Health at Work commitment and, where appropriate, the mental health enhanced standards in Thriving at Work • Public reporting by the tenderer and its supply chain on the health and wellbeing of staff comprising the contract workforce, following the recommendations in the Voluntary Reporting Framework. • Engagement plans to engage the contract workforce in deciding the most important issues to address. • Methods to measure staff engagement over time and adapt to any changes in the results. • Processes for acting on issues identified. Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method • Case study • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 60% Cultural fit 10% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. Please can you confirm who the incumbent supplier is? Equal Experts UK Limited 2. Could you elaborate on what exactly you want the supplier to answer in Essential-to-Have Skills – “Flexible on UK travel”? Supplier personnel shall work remotely however, supplier personnel will be expected to travel regularly to HMRC office locations in the UK for essential workshops and face-to-face meetings. Southend On Sea will be the Primary Location for this agreement and therefore all travel and subsistence costs shall be covered by the supplier when supplier personnel travel to this location. The successful supplier shall be expected to travel to HMRC office locations in the UK upon request from the Authority. 3. Could you elaborate on what exactly you want the supplier to answer in Nice-to-Have Skills – “Good attention to detail”? The successful supplier shall have experience of working with complex sets of business rules, legislative requirements and multiple interfaces with different systems. 4. Could you elaborate what are the following things in problem to be solved section:Excite EU Gateway toNJSCI-EMCS-ICS-MOSS-ITR (UK EOS)-Also what kind of support is received from Vivansa? ExCITE = Excise and Customs International Trade EnvironmentNJCSI = New java version of CSI CSI = Common System InterfaceCCN = Common Communication NetworkEMCS = Excise Movement and Control SystemICS = Import Control SystemMOSS = Mini One Stop ShopITR = International Trader RegisterEOS = Economic Operator SystemsVivansa are an IT Supplier to HMRC supporting aspects of CCN/CSI. 5. What is expected in the response ‘flexible in UK travel’. Please elaborate. Supplier personnel shall work remotely however, supplier personnel will be expected to travel regularly to HMRC office locations in the UK for essential workshops and face-to-face meetings. Southend On Sea will be the Primary Location for this agreement and therefore all travel and subsistence costs shall be covered by the supplier when supplier personnel travel to this location. The successful supplier shall be expected to travel to HMRC office locations in the UK upon request from the Authority. 6. Please share the Procurement timetable? Please note this is an indicative timeline which is subject to change throughout the procurement process.Opportunity Published 15/06/2021Opportunity Closes 28/06/2021Evaluation of Applications 29/06/2021-13/07/2021Invitation for Proposal from Shortlisted Suppliers 13/07/2021-27/07/2021Evaluation of Proposals & Supplier Presentations 28/07/2021-26/08/2021Supplier Award Notification 27/08/2021Contract Signature 09/09/2021Contract Mobilisation 23/09/2021 7. Are multiple examples allowed for all the responses. Yes 8. Would you be able to define what is driving the October latest starting date? Would you be open to a supplier being able to mobile more quickly than this, or are there dependencies which need to be delivered before this work commences? Please note this is an indicative timeline which is subject to change throughout the procurement process.Opportunity Published 15/06/2021Opportunity Closes 28/06/2021Evaluation of Applications 29/06/2021-13/07/2021Invitation for Proposal from Shortlisted Suppliers 13/07/2021-27/07/2021Evaluation of Proposals & Supplier Presentations 28/07/2021-26/08/2021Supplier Award Notification 27/08/2021Contract Signature 09/09/2021Contract Mobilisation 23/09/2021 9. 1. What is expected in the response ‘Attention to detail’. Please elaborate.2. What are the total number of roles expected and what are they? 1)The successful supplier shall have experience of working with complex sets of business rules, legislative requirements and multiple interfaces with different systems2) Shortlisted suppliers shall propose a resource plan as part of their proposal for this opportunity. Roles shall be in line with the Digital, Data and Technology Profession Capability Framework: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/digital-data-and-technology-profession-capability-framework 10. Please can we know what sort of integration exists today with Vivansa systems? We are assuming the integrations are API based, is the understanding correct? Vivansa supply the LXR.CCN. This product provides the link between HMRC's ExCITE Services and CCN/CSI Service (the central hub for EU traffic). 11. Is there an expectation that the supplier will need to deliver integrations with any legacy systems, and if so are you be able to describe these? There will be integrations with:The Enterprise Tax Management Platform (ETMP) is a SAP based service used across HMRC to manage an increasing number of HMRC’s taxes and duties.MDTP is HMRC's Multi-Channel Digital Platform. MDTP is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) currently hosted in AWS and all of HMRC's modern, customer-facing digital services accessed via Gov.uk reside on this platform. CCN/CSI, Common Communication Network / Common System Interface. Provides the secure interface between HMRC and EU Member States. 12. For the technology Qs viz, E10, can we quote our experience other than UK clients. By E10, we assume you are referring to: 'Experience using WebLogic Server – 10.3.6, Oracle Service Bus 11.1.1.6'. If this assumption is correct, we are happy to review experience of this criteria with non-UK clients. 13. Could we please get some more clarity (i.e. a list) on the full technology stack (as not many technologies are mentioned there)and if how much of the work is developing microservices vs building platform/ infrastructure vs building front-endmainly how important front-end developing is for this The proposed technology stack is listed in the requirement's Essential Criteria. The scope includes developing microservices which include some UI work. Building a platform/infrastructure is not in scope. 14. With regard to Question 10: Experience using WebLogic Server – 10.3.6, Oracle Service Bus 11.1.1.6. Are the specific version numbers and combination needed for a higher scoring answer based on the evaluation criteria? We will be evaluating experience of using WebLogic Server – 10, Oracle Service Bus 11 15. With regard to Question 10: Experience using WebLogic Server – 10.3.6, Oracle Service Bus 11.1.1.6. Are the specific version numbers and combination needed for a higher scoring answer based on the evaluation criteria? We will be evaluating experience of using WebLogic Server – 10, Oracle Service Bus 11 16. Please find below clarification questions (1/2):1-Are dev and test environments already built or will that be a task in the engagement?2-Are product owners assigned and experienced in the role?Are there any particular front end development tools in place or preferred (e.g. outsystems)?3-Is there a devops pipeline built and deployed or is building that in scope?4-Is there an existing PCI/DSS compliant environment or is designing and building one in scope?5-Are the EU functional and Technical requirements well defined or is establishing these in scope? 1) Dev and Test environments are in the process of being built.2) Business Product Owner is assigned and experienced3) The Devops pipeline will reuse work already completed for previous projects.4) The OSS/IOSS Core component does not need to be PCI/DSS compliant.5) There are detailed well defined EU Functional and Technical requirements enshrined in law. 17. 1. The summary of the work includes core microservice platform development as well as messaging and a digital front end – so an end to end service. However, the ‘problem to be solved’ describes just the core application and an upgrade of Excite. Please can you clarify the scope of the contract (is it end to end including digital or just the core application)?2. Who is involved in the current Discovery activities?3. Will the low level design be complete before contract award or is that part of the scope of the contract? 1) Core Application2) Equal Experts UK Limited & HMRC3) Low Level design will be part of an iterative approach throughout the lifecycle of the project 18. 1. Supplier evaluation – does the ‘written proposal’ refer to the next stage once 5 suppliers have been selected?2. Do the additional assessment methods (case study and presentation) refer to the next stage of the process once 5 suppliers have been selected?3. The latest start date is listed at 1st October. Assuming there will be transition activities from the existing supplier (EE), is the 1st October to start transition or to start the development of the core application following transition? 1) Yes 2)Yes3) Transition activities shall begin from the Contract Mobilisation date. The latest indicative Procurement Timeline suggests that Contract Mobilisation shall start from 23rd September. Please note the indicative Procurement Timeline could be subject to change during the procurement process. 19. In relation to the first Nice to Have criteria, could you please be more specific regarding the guidelines and frameworks referred to? Are these HMRC’s guidelines and frameworks, or those of other UK government (e.g. GDS)/3rd party suppliers or other government frameworks (EU as the obvious partner)? Are you able to provide any examples which would apply for this opportunity? The successful supplier shall be expected to work with multiple stakeholders to deliver this work, including HMRC and third party suppliers. Therefore, suppliers will need to demonstrate their experience of working in multi-stakeholder environments within guidelines and frameworks beyond their own. This may encompass both technical and delivery methodology. 20. For “Experience of working within someone else’s guidelines and frameworks”Are we talking about gov.uk guidelines? Can you share links of the guidelines and frameworks a supplier will need to follow? The successful supplier shall be expected to work with multiple stakeholders to deliver this work, including HMRC and third party suppliers. Therefore, suppliers will need to demonstrate their experience of working in multi-stakeholder environments within guidelines and frameworks beyond their own. This may encompass both technical and delivery methodology. 21. 1. The first question in the ‘nice to have’ skills asks about working with someone else’s guidelines and frameworks – can you clarify whether this refers to technical frameworks or delivery methodology?2. Does the summary of work for this tender relate to an existing core application?3. Do these requirements relate to the connectivity to EU? How is the scope divided and effort required across these two areas? 1) The successful supplier shall be expected to work with multiple stakeholders to deliver this work, including HMRC and third party suppliers. Therefore, suppliers will need to demonstrate their experience of working in multi-stakeholder environments within guidelines and frameworks beyond their own. This may encompass both technical and delivery methodology.2) The work relates to a new core application 3) Approximately 50% of the requirements relate to messaging to and from the EU 22. Please find below clarification questions (2/2):7-Is there an appetite to consider a payment for results/outcomes model rather than effort?8-Is the requirement to provide a fully functional scrum team including scrum master and devops personnel? 7) As the Authority onboards each Statement of Work, the successful supplier shall work with the Authority to determine the most suitable pricing mechanism. It is anticipated that the initial statement of work will be capped time and materials however, throughout the duration of the agreement this may move to a fixed outcome/ milestone payment schedule. 8) Yes (or teams)