Suppliers invited to multimillion-pound Welsh cloud bonanza

Five-year deal could be worth up to £5m

The Welsh government is searching for up to six suppliers to develop a new cloud IT system to help it work better with the country's businesses.

A range of software, consultancy services and operating system services are required as part of the deal, which will be worth between £1m and £5m over a five-year period. The contracting period will begin next February and will last until January 2020, when there will be an option to extend the deal for an additional two years, subject to annual reviews.

In a recently published tender document, the Welsh government said it is hoping the new suppliers will help it better support Welsh businesses.

"[We] require a solution that enables businesses to transact electronically, for example, apply for grants, with the Welsh government [as well as] gives officials a single, but basic, record for each of the businesses that [we do] deals with."

It added that the solution must be hosted on cloud infrastructure and offer an efficient means of securely sharing information across its internal teams.