Daisy: Subcontracting has created 'framework community'

Daisy's bid manager Lynne Magennis says subcontracting is on the rise as more resellers form agreements with each other

Daisy's bid manager Lynne Magennis has said there has been a significant increase in resellers subcontracting while on frameworks, which has led to what she described as the rise of a "framework community".

Subcontracting is a practice whereby a reseller who is not on a framework will go through all the pre-sales with a customer, but the order will be placed through another reseller which is on the framework, and that reseller will take one or two per cent of the margin.

Magennis told CRN the practice is on the rise and there are a number of reasons for it.

Firstly, purchasing organisations are being charged with supporting local businesses, and "one aspect of that is going to be using local sub-contractors".

"We have an example [where] we have a large contract with the county council, and one of the subcontractors underneath that is for on-site cabling," she said. "We use a specific cabler that that county council has asked us to use, because they have knowledge of their site and are local. Also for that particular contract we commit to providing apprentices. All those kinds of initiatives are becoming more commonplace."

The other key reason for subcontracting is that increasingly niche and smaller resellers are making the decision not to get on frameworks as it's too costly and time consuming; instead they use subcontracts, she said.

Due to this increase in subcontracting, Magennis said more resellers are forming agreements with each other.

"I think for the first time we are seeing what you could call a framework community," she said. "We are seeing far more partnerships being forged for the benefit of the suppliers and the benefit of the customer as well."

A flooded market

Last August, the Network Services Framework (RM1045) framework went live, replacing the PSN Services and PSN Connectivity frameworks. Magennis said RM1045's introduction has seen a huge upswing in procurement activity.

"We saw a lot of procurement bodies who knew they wanted to go through RM1045," she said. "And we had a lot of procurement put on the back burner waiting for RM1045 to be released and we saw the market flooded in the first couple of months. There is still a great level of activity, even though the market has dropped slightly."

You can read more about subcontracting and the framework landscape in the current issue of CRN.