Voluntary Action Islington Case Study

Selecting a support provider

About the organisation

Voluntary Action Islington (VAI) is a membership organisation for people working to make a positive difference to life in the local community. It offers a range of services to support small and emerging voluntary organisations with their development needs. This includes the provision of resources such as desk space, computers, internet access and servers.

The challenge

Their existing contract with a third party support provider was up for renewal and they wanted to explore other options, as well as consider moving some of their equipment to a remote data centre which would allow them to free up office space. Adapta was approached to help produce a requirements specification to guide them through the process to select a new third party support provider.

Adapta support

We were able to help prepare the requirements specification and provide support through the process of selecting a new supplier of the services identified in the specification on a very cost-effective basis. We provided templates for documents that VAI needed to produce, reviewed and edited the requirements that were included in the templates, and helped to produce a timetable that prioritised what needed doing and when. Adapta was also able to offer guidance on how best VAI should respond to supplier’s questions. We helped to structure the interview questions, attended interviews with them, and supported them through the decision-making process. At the end of the process they picked the supplier they wanted and were able to disengage comfortably from their incumbent support provider and moved successfully to a hosted arrangement. By the beginning of 2015 server equipment was relocated, and all desktop PCs upgraded so VAI are now able to offer tenants a standard pack of equipment and software, as well as improving the services they were getting from their previous support provider.

Voluntary Action Islington
Mike Sherriff
Chief Executive

“ICT is an area where we do not have in-house expertise. There are now lots of companies trying to sell us services so it was very helpful to have independent and impartial advice.”

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Clients

We strive to support a dynamic, impactful sector that leads through innovation and collaborative thinking. We are continually amazed by the incredible work the sector does and the support it gives to make a difference to millions of lives in the UK and across the world. View the organisations we work with here.