Cabinet Office boss woos large suppliers at HPE Discover
John Manzoni claims SME suppliers alone 'not good enough'
The boss of the Civil Service has talked up the benefits large suppliers bring the government at a Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) event in London.
John Manzoni, who is parliamentary secretaty for the Cabinet Office as well as Civil Service CEO, said although small suppliers are "really important" to the government, alone, they are "not good enough".
Manzoni was invited to speak at HPE Discover this afternoon to talk about the way the UK government is transforming thanks to investment in digital technology.
The Digital Marketplace and the G-Cloud framework were namechecked as key successes for the government, but Manzoni said these initatives form part of a wider strategy which includes working with larger firms.
"That's one part of what is really important - the small enterprises," he said. "But on the other hand, I believe, we are doing some of the most important things in the UK government and we need some of the best companies to help us. So, just focusing on the very small companies is not good enough.
"We need to create partnerships and we need to create opportunities for the very best companies in all ways to come and help us do what we need to do. It is a complex environment... and the job is far, far from done. We have still got a lot to do."
Working with smaller suppliers has been a key priority for the government for a number of years. It has been vocal about the benefits of moving away from signing massive, long-term IT deals with huge suppliers - such as HP - in favour of shorter, lower-value deals with smaller providers.
HPE's UK managing director Andy Isherwood told CRN back in October that the government's agenda has moved towards focusing on "transformation" instead of purely cost cutting.
In his presentation, Manzoni said that the government needs to work much better with the private sector to deliver its aims.
"Just like everyone in this room, we just don't have enough of the right skills in government," he said. "We need more skills inside government, but I don't think, in the end, we will ever be able to create enough of the right skills just inside the government.
"So, it brings me back again to the importance of finding constructive and collaborative ways of partnering with the private sector in a way which is mutually beneficial. We in the public sector have to completely up our game in a commercial sense in regards to our way of interfacing with the private sector, especially in the digital and technical space."