Last week Ron Stuart, Manager Government ICT Supply Strategy, GCIO’s office, DIA briefed audiences of NZRise, NZTech and IITP members in Auckland and Wellington. Both events drew large crowds with ~200 people braving a freezing wind in Wellington demonstrating the levels of interest and importance of this announcement. We also noted a strong contingent of Government employees from a broad range of agencies in attendance alongside the private sector audience.

You can view Accelerating Cloud Adoption FINAL 2 August 2016, they support the talk but do not provide much of the context and background we were briefed on. You can also review the cabinet paper and ICT Strategy encompassing this programme here.

Key messages (my words) see Slide 9 of presentation for more

• The ICT marketplace will be a Public Cloud software marketplace (not hybrid cloud or private cloud)
• For an organisation to list their Public Cloud software there will be a single contract negotiation, single security clearance hurdle and single pricebook for all of Government to procure licenses from
• Designed to stand alongside current procurement processes vs replace
• Strong theme that NZ Govt will behave as a single customer
• After reviewing many other countries the NZ ICT marketplace will be modelled off the GCloud in the UK
• DIA are in proof of concept phase with two vendors currently (names were not disclosed)

My observations of the audience questions

• The Q&A was excellent, with over 20 minutes allocated the hands didn’t stop going up.
• The audience asked how this will be fair and equitable for small companies alongside large multinationals (who were mentioned frequently during the briefing) – these questions from both the public and private sector.
• It became clear Government Agencies require further education on Cloud adoption and the GCIO’s office guidelines eg: Strong debate on the 105+ Security questions (from both public and private sector attendees) demonstrated how some agencies adopt guidelines as if they are rules, and misunderstand aspects of the GCIO’s messaging.
• Many, many in attendance wanted one-on-one time with Ron and his team to push their own product. My recommendation is working with your Industry Representative bodies will ensure a collective voice focused on creating a fair and equitable marketplace for NZ.

Next Steps

NZRise, NZTech and IITP meet the CGIO’s office on a quarterly basis and will be holding out of cycle discussions on this topic specifically. Our recommendation is to hold smaller workshop based briefings with groups to run through scenario’s, explore how the marketplace will operate and how agencies will be on-boarded etc.

We appreciate this is a complex solution to implement fairly and equitably meeting the goals of open and transparent operation. The turnout to these two events indicated both buyers and sellers are interested this proposition and it’s success – this is a very positive step forward.

If you are not an NZRise, IITP or NZTech member (please feel free to join of course) you can comment on this post or email me [email protected]

Victoria MacLennan, Co-Chair, NZRise.