What is G-Cloud 11?
Some of you may have heard the term G-Cloud floating about recently but do you know what it means, and what it could mean to you?
So G-Cloud is a framework that allows UK public sector bodies to choose and buy cloud computing services. This agreement is valid for 12 months, however, the agreement may be extended for a further 12 months in certain scenarios. The G-Cloud framework is also known as the Digital Marketplace – this is where you can buy services covering hosting, software and cloud support on a commodity based, pay-as-you-go service.
But what are the benefits of using this framework over just buying?
- Access to over 30,000 services.
- Scalable services, paying for only what you use, being able to increase or reduce what you need when you need it.
- Quick and easy route into the market.
- Reduced costs and reduced total cost of ownership compared to running your own service in house.
- Suppliers are vetted and reviewed regularly, this saves people time finding suppliers and checking their reliability.
- Access to over 4000 suppliers.
- Buyers get competitive prices because suppliers can sell large volumes of their products and services to UK public sector organisations as though they were supplying a single customer.
- Contracts comply with public sector procurement regulations.
- Standardised contract terms reduce administration.
- Access to the latest technology and innovations with every refresh of the G-Cloud agreement.
- You can change your service provider easily.
Say you did want to use this framework, what’s the process on buying? There’s a six step process on the Digital Marketplace – you don’t need to even register to gain access to this service. All of the documents regarding call-off and framework agreements, schedules and supplier list can be found on the Digital Marketplace.
