 Okay, hello everyone and welcome to the next session in the business and strategy track a few familiar faces here I noticed people are following tracks more or less I think and I hope that's been a good strategy for you Now today we have the next session now is collaborating with the public sector by David Calcoli and Have I I've actually said that correctly haven't I? Excellent. Just it's always worthwhile checking We'll just leave that door open for a little bit. I'll shut that in a minute while people still come in and This is a session that I've really been looking forward to personally because I think it sessions like This session and also the next session Where Philip Rabin will be speaking about selling Drupal to large enterprise that really underpin the theme of the conference Which is growing Drupal down under so really I think you know we need to look Carefully into moving Drupal into large Organizations including government and enterprises. So this session obviously is focusing focusing on government Now David is the business solution consultant for objective corporation in New Zealand He consults with the public sector to bring together end-to-end enterprise solutions Enabling organizations to do more with less which I find to be very intriguing And I'm sure we're going to find out a little bit about what he does and how he does it in a minute So could you please welcome David Calcoli? Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you All right Have you guys been enjoying the conference so far for you have say yes? Yes, fantastic. All right, so let's have a quick look about The public sector so a little bit about me I started Developing software at age 12. I got my first turbo C compiler and I was working at what on earth There's all these symbols mean and from there I started developing various bits of software until I got into web and My first real job was developing Drupal brochure sites for a graphic design agency And so we'd create various types of websites that would start off from the simple five pages about us contact Who we are what we do through to the Pacific Coast on the day you which won the New South Wales Tourism Gold Prize in 2011 So that's an iPhone app and a website that helps you plan your holiday between Sydney and Brisbane Then I moved on to integrating Civisarium with Drupal Alfresco bit of document management records management all Tied together with this customs and framework and that was really the first time where I'd seen open source product ties in an actual product Then I got shoulder tapped and said look you're doing this stuff Why don't you come over to New Zealand and do this for the public sector and I don't know Okay, why would I go to Wellington then they sent me to Wellington just just try it out have a look and So far I haven't looked back. It's been absolutely brilliant living in Wellington so what I do is I work exclusively with the public sector and some very large enterprises that work with the public sector so The perspective I'll give you today is essentially how would you target? Large enterprises that have very stringent requirements and the same Carried over to a government organization So to cover off today, we'll have a look to get everyone on the same page We'll have a look at exactly what a public sector organization looks like what they do what they get up to and We'll then go and say where can we fit your solution in there? how can you sell it and how to follow this slippery process that we call due process and We'll have a look at that So a typical cross-section is a minister then a secretary Executives public servants and then a supply chain underneath so just to make sure on the same page Typically the Department of a government is a secretary and executives and public servants and the other two Fit in alongside that So the minister is the only person that is elected by the public This is the people you ballot for and put the paper in the ballot box Now they administer what's called a portfolio and a portfolio is a group of departments For example, you might administer the minute you might be the minister for agriculture and you'll administer agriculture Fisheries waterways and a few other things that are related Now they promote what's called outcomes and as you can see outcomes is in italics on the screen there And that's because outcomes is a keyword if you go to a departmental website You will find their outcome statement or you will find their statement of intent the mission statement and it will be our Outcomes are to deliver x y and z now outcomes are There are two-edged sword really they're varied they are ethereal There could be something like we're going to increase the efficiency of the public transport network They could be something that is very very specific such as we're going to commit 200 million to rural education so outcomes really are the Trendsetting or the direction setting of a government department now then comes the secretary The secretary is the CEO essentially of an organization They're appointed by a minister for a fixed term Usually a contract of about three to five years and they report to the minister and they have to deliver that outcome So what that means is the minister goes to the media puts their hand on hard and says we're going to deliver this Then they go back to the secretary and says um, I just told everyone out there you have to deliver it and That is why secretaries get gray here very quickly So they have to deliver it now Executives the executives manage the day-to-day operation So what they do is they create budgets they allocate resources and they produce what's called outputs That's a very key term there as well Outputs of what the organization produces as a result of day-to-day work Now sometimes they're called different things assistant secretaries deputy assistant secretaries Usually they have a chief Officer in their title, so CIO CFO CTO that kind of stuff In the police and military there might be deputy commissioner major general lieutenant general that kind of thing So the outputs they deliver are actually legislated So if they say we're going to deliver some kind of output, which is Public transport they have to deliver that transport in order to get funding So what they do is actually very very important Then we have the public servants So these are the middle managers and the staff making the world go around so HR finance IT Frontline staff so they do the day-to-day work and they consume the resources that have been allocated by the executives And so part of their work contributes towards this output, which is the direction the organization is going So then at the end of it you've got the supply chains of private supplies of goods and services other public organizations So for instance, you might have a land information department They do geospatial surveying Mapping and they might provide the result of their work to a local council who deals in streets roads properties So that kind of thing and then we've got vendors now Vendors deliver and support a good of service now It could be that vendors do something cheaper faster and quicker than Having to train the internal staff so by having to train internal staff You're taking them off the roll that they're good at and making them train in something that they're going to be good at At a later time so it may be cheaper just to get a vendor to come in and do that bit for you The corollary to that is that you can free up staff To do a better job by coming in and taking over some kind of function So being a vendor is a really good place to be if you can say hey We can make you put more staff into the front line serving the citizens by clearing up the back office So rather than having 10 people scanning your emails, let's send your letters Let's send them to a mail processing center where it's automatically scanned and automatically put into your system and Those 10 people can then go and start serving more customers who come into your front door So that's what vendors can do Now let's think about levels. You've got minister secretary executives public servant supply chain and sometimes it can get a bit complicated as to who does what because a minister can look at one or two departments or two or three portfolios or More than one minister can look after one. So it's a bit of a many to many relationship Then mad had a style everyone change seats machinery of government change. That's a technical term Everyone shuffles around departments and moved here and put there and all of a sudden the contacts you've been developing are gone So rather than thinking about who's the one particular person in a generic sense Let's think about the different levels. We've got the political level the executive level and the operational level So what that means is if you're a director of a company You really want to be engaging at the political and executive level Because that's what the government expects you to do if you are a for example solutions architect You would want to do You would want to connect to people at the operational level and perhaps the executive level to get them to understand What you're proposing So the levels essentially allow us to abstract away the people that are shuffling and allow us to concentrate Okay, we're targeting these people this week and these people next week to give them the resources they need to work together So let's work with these levels The outcomes get promoted from the political level The outputs come out of the operational level. So In a sense what this means is that the outcomes is the direction the minister and the government is saying This is where we need to go the outputs is where the organization is actually going and Sometimes as Kate Lundy said this morning, it's a big ship and turning that ship around to start going in a different direction Can be difficult So What does this mean for us as people who supply goods and services? well When outcomes don't match The outputs that is the best place for you to be because that is the place we can say hey I realize you're going in this direction, but your minister says you have to go in this direction We've got some low-cost stuff we can do to save the headache of having to switch everything at once So it is the best place for you to be to realize this value proposition and that value proposition is Become a trusted advisor become the person that the CIO goes. I've got this headache. Who do I talk to? I know I'll talk to my mate give him a call He'll give me some good and bad ideas and I'll be able to get at least a picture of what's out there what I can do So the best position to be in is to be where the organization knows that the out comes and the outputs aren't matching They know that you've got a plan to help it But more importantly they know that you're helping them get a plan to get funding because in the government nothing happens without funding Now, how do you how do you find out? Exactly where things are not working and how do you find out where you can fit in? Well, it comes down to something called enterprise architecture So enterprise architecture is the place where business meets IT So every organization has of a certain size every organization has what's called an enterprise architect And you they have different titles you can find them by the couple of key things what they do They create the three to five year roadmaps of the whole ecosystem So you might have an infrastructure architect this information architect a network architect So they all put together their roadmaps to create the plan of what is it that we're going to do So they report to the CIO or Sometimes for smaller organizations. They are the CIO. So what in straightaway? No, it's okay. We know the CIO Let's have a look down the corporate the corporate Chain and see who reports to them. Maybe they are the enterprise architect so Why is enterprise architecture really really really important? The reason why is because enterprise architecture is the recipe for the organization So for example, if the enterprise architects are going, you know what? We haven't invested in our phone system for the last 10 years Let's for the next 12 months really focus on getting a state-of-the-art VoIP based system that people can just take their phone Sit at another desk in our other regional office plug-in. They know where they are their phone number automatically routes to them they get Wave files sent to them as voice mails via email. Let's do that Now 12 months they have agreed they're going to focus on this if you come in trying to sell them a website They're focused on something completely different and you may be Facing some disappointment when you get the pushback and the resistance So again, it's the It's the 80-20 rule if you have a new CIO or a new enterprise architect They're going to want to make some quick wins and quick wins means they get their stripes They get the reputation in the organization to make the stuff they want to happen so what can you do to Bring together the business and the IT side to get some quick wins on the board So there's usually a personality issue The business has some requirements IT has some requirements Usually business is at the end of the day headed by the CFO the person who signs the check the accountant IT is headed by the CIO the person who brings together So what happens is the CFO stands over here and the CIO comes to him the CFO thinks This guy coming to me again wanting to spend money on gadgets and this that and the other all I want to do is Manage the risk of my investments Why is it such a difficult thing to be happy with what you've already got? The CIO on the other hand is coming in and saying we've got to do this particular outcome because your guys told my guys that They need to start using Dropbox in-house Well, you can't do that. Well, exactly. That's why we need another solution So the conversation happens and usually there's a bit of a clash between the two so Can you be a friend to the CFO and the CIO if you can bring them together? Then you're in that trusted advisor role that says hey look I can help you get on the good side with the CFO This solution that I'm proposing you will manage the risk of whatever the CFO is afraid of and vice versa So there's a word on there called innovative and innovative is overused But let's say in government innovative is used to describe an outcome that links to an output of a public organization, so The principle is called do more with less so organization or A department that's called innovative is a department that can go in and say hey you've cut our budget But that's okay. We've rearranged our internal processes. We've done a few different things and now We're delivering a better service than before. Thanks for cutting our budget. It's not a worry to us That is an innovative government organization and the best thing is you can help them become that So as part of enterprise architecture, there is something called the roadmap and the roadmap is a three to five year plan of What application systems? What infrastructure systems are going to be put into the whole? enterprise So there's a couple of names there togaf mickey 2.0 dragon 1a. They are essentially Different methodologies now togaf is by far the most popular one If you're talking to CIOs and enterprise architects really really helpful if you know the togaf Naming the domain specific terms because what it does it allows you to create a Plan that the CIO everyone we're human We don't want to do more work than we have to the CIO can take your plan and you say hey This is already using the right terminology. It's already using the right concepts I can just integrate this into my roadmap and that puts you in a fantastic position as that trusted advisor of goods and services so So what that means really is? If you're coming in and saying hey, we've got this awesome website We can do for you But the business doesn't want a website then really it's like having a waiting room where you're sitting there And you've got a toothache and a doctor comes in to you and says hey You know what I'm a Splint doctor so what we're gonna do is we're gonna get your leg measurements. We're gonna create this awesome cast for you We're gonna iteratively put the cast on and we're gonna let it set for a bit And then we'll go live by taking the cast off and voila. You'll have a perfect non-broken leg You're sitting there with a tooth not a leg Same thing with a roadmap if the roadmap is saying we've already just invested a number of dollars in our online presence We're going to focus on something internal keep Hounding the people is just going to make them your enemy They're not going to be friends with you because you keep annoying them because they've got a different headache to fix than the one You're suggesting but what you can do is you can say hey, I realize I'm Selling you web, but I know a guy who does some kind of VoIP infrastructure. Maybe I can put the two of you together Might be able to have a chat and come up with something So what that means is you become the connector and the connector is a very important thing because if you Have this network of people who rely Who you rely on and they rely on you you're at the center of knowing oh? Yeah, so this person. I've just spoken to I've got this mate his Looking to upgrade his infrastructure, but you know what I've you want to meet with him have a chat Yeah, sure in the course of discussion You might find out that one of his clients is looking to upgrade their website and all of a sudden tit for tat You've both got a bit of business together in the future You'll be more willing to share and that is a really powerful networking opportunity for you So assist the CIOs whether or not you have a good or service right now doesn't mean you can't Provide someone to do them to help them with that So know the terms know toga know the language that is used because that's really important It's straight away You're part of their group of their world and they see that you understand what they're talking about what their pain points are so This is the toga enterprise architecture. This is their statement. You don't have to read all of it But essentially enterprise architecture according to toga is a way to optimize Existing and legacy business processes to make them more responsive to change because the issue is not that a Organization is profitable or unprofitable The issue is that we're with the web with the internet moving so quickly our technology changes so often If an organization can't change and keep up with the times very quickly It becomes a case study or a post-mortem of an organization So this is why so many people use toga to essentially Manage their infrastructure. It's like using six sigma for production So there are four big innovative outcomes in government They're talked about non-stop and if you want to you need to know them off the top of your head social big data mobile cloud Now the CIOs are talking about them not because the term is overused But because what each term represents to them now in terms of social for an or for an enterprise and a government Organization being social means that you get feedback as soon as you go to market So your citizens can talk to you your constituents can talk to you big data means that what you can do is you can analyze all the information that you can collect and then start creating metrics and say well we've spent 20 million dollars on this feature but 50% of our users are using a different feature. So let's invest some money on that So what that means is that government organizations particularly can effectively Manage public funds and that's a really important thing which we'll cover in a bit Mobile we're all doing mobile now cloud and what's called excess So that software as a service infrastructure as a service platform as a service application of service you name it as a service Really important for government today because what they want to do is they want to move away from a capital expenditure model Where you buy an asset through to an operational expenditure model where you buy a good or service for a limited time So those are the big four and if you can drop those in conversation say hey look we realize that different people mean different things For us. This is what we mean by this term so let's have a chat about open source and In open source There is a certain meaning that you get out of it For a government official the government domain language for open source means something slightly different So let's have a look at what that means So so if you're sitting at a table and somebody who doesn't know open sources come in and said Okay, I'm the guy signing the check and you mention open source. This is what usually comes to mind So source is corporate information. It's the data system where everything is stored It forms part of the single source of truth which governments hammer down so much avoid duplication De-duplicate get your data in order make one single source of truth that kind of stuff And it also represents their own intellectual property and will cover off why that's really important now What does open mean open means accessible in government such as open government? Proactive disclosure where government say hey if there was an FOI request We'd probably give it the information to them. So let's just give the information to the public now So that's what open source means now for us Open source is a technical term. It's technical language along with lambda functions and anonymous functions And what it does it denotes philosophy philosophy around creation and collaboration of content such as source code hardware Graphic art techniques really anything can be done in an open source way so There's sometimes gets a bit of a conflict of interest where people who don't understand open source have preconceived ideas about it Especially people who sign the checks So when you say oh, it's open source. What is it? Well, it's usually for a website a Drupal base configured modules custom modules theme Maybe some DNS settings to make it look like it's under there So what they see is? Something slightly different what they see is this application has got everything that I own Everything that my organization organization does is in this application and it's open So what they see is that the operational level as we mentioned before is putting so much effort into making intellectual property And all of a sudden that intellectual property gets given out for nothing That is a certain element of concern now The reason why it's an element of concern is not necessarily really really obviously logical. So in two things If you have an information leak now an information leak is not something that is an Accident it's something that the media calls an information Which is where it's really important if you have any information leak whether it's because of Improperly described proactive disclosure What happens is that as an executive your career is now tarnished with the brush of you bought this system It was open and now look your information is out now people in the public sector tend to be career People so that means they go from one department to a ministry to a department to a council back to a department So if in one of the particular departments, they have a security issue Essentially that careers over so that's why organizations that purchase Goods and services really in the government security is number one. It is the number one thing for government purchasing. So the other thing is It's part of something called achievement and this term will look into in a bit later But if you have information that you've created and you don't give that information out or you give it out Improperly that affects this term called achievement. We'll have a look at that in a second. So If you are really really passionate about open source and that's fantastic What you need to do is you need to educate them about the merit of open source Educate them in language that they understand of what is open source now You do that by creating mind share and mind share is a term used to describe How much something or someone thinks about you if you're always in front of mind because you're the person the other first person They go to call when there's an issue You've got mind share. So what does that mean? If you give them the tools because at the end of the day if they're signing as a CFO They're signing the check the secretary is going to say why are we buying this solution? Now if the CFO does not understand what open source is They're going to go I don't know and they can't do that So what we need to do is we need to give them all the tools and materials They need to properly understand what open source is now. We'll have a quick look about how we can describe what open source is When you purchase goods and services in government you have a line item that goes into a particular budget So the open source line item needs to be not we're buying some good and service that we don't really understand it needs to be we're buying risk mitigation what we're buying is the ability for any developer or any Support organization to look at the core of our system and provide support that we may not otherwise get so if you position your solution and Give it to them in these kind of terms say hey look if you've got this open source product What that means is if we can't support it as an organization you can hire anyone really? Who knows how to support this and you can go ahead and keep supporting it so what that means is for you It's a risk mitigation and they love that and if you keep going along those terms then what happens is it's not your solution It's their solution because they understand exactly what they're getting and that is the really valuable thing So it's about open source when the optimum result is a solution to a business problem So what that means is a lot of the time? I'm in a in say a bidding process where we're negotiating stuff and we've got a partner who's Perhaps particularly passionate about something they say great We're going to give you this open source solution and it's going to be fantastic and the buyer doesn't really understand that Because they're talking technical to a person who doesn't talk technical So what that means is that you need to give people who sign checks The solution to the problem not the technology because if you give them a solution that takes away their headache Undepend by really good risk management Then it doesn't matter what the technology is Because for them they need to deliver an output for the organization the output they need to deliver Has to be something that they can go into the public and say yes, we did this The actual technology behind it is coming second place So that's really a really important point. So technology is an enabler an open source is a really efficient enabler But it's not the key point So sell the solution sell the entire solution as something that will solve a business problem The technology will just fall in line as part of the process So since we're talking about selling let's have a look at a sales team Unfortunately sales seems to be a dirty word and it's true some people ruined the reputation for others But what a sales team in the healthy sense of the word is it's a team that converts coffee and phone calls into signed deals You can relate to that. Yes Absolutely so What we need is the 3d's discipline direction and drives a sales team is disciplined because if you're going hey as a salesperson Go sell something. Where do I start? So discipline needs to be there to go. Hey, you're going to be selling stuff So the process of making a sale is very very important now in government the process of making a sale is very long So you need to break down barriers With people as a salesperson, but not barriers of any kind of like can I call you it's barriers of understanding? because if you make Mindshare in the mind of a person with whom you're dealing to say hey, you know, this isn't a salesperson who's going to sell me something This is a person who's going to fix my problem That is the barrier of understanding and unfortunately a lot of sales people are very gung-ho. Yes Go sign on the dotted line. We'll have a coffee or do this. We'll do that. It'll be awesome And that's the wrong approach. The right approach is to say hey look I realize that there's a problem and this is the solution I can see for your problem and What happens is you don't sell them on the idea they sell themselves on your idea and create their own solution so When it comes to direction as a business owner now Make sure that your sales team has a clear direction of where they need to go whether it's one specific vertical Whether it's a market niche make sure that they're not chasing every Low-hanging fruit because it reminds me of an organization really in Wellington that essentially chases any deal They can get and sure if they're successful But the problem is their sales team is worn out. They're fatigued Because as soon as they come back into the office. Oh, look, you've got this really awesome opportunity go get it They don't know anything about how to install coffee pots into fridges They're an IT salesperson, but no, this is an opportunity for Java because it runs on any device So again, this is keep your sales team in a clear direction if you need to go in a different direction create a different sales team And then there's drive a sales team needs to be passionate And they need to be passionate not about getting more money, but about achieving the best result for their Customer and that's really really important get your sales team so passionate about delivering the best solution with the technology offering that you have and Question is how do you make a good salesperson into a great salesperson? Rule number one always be closing ABC always be closing Who's seen Glenn Gary Glen Ross the movie? Yes, that speech that 10-minute speech now a little bit of trivia The the actor performing the 10-minute speech that was his only 10 minutes on screen and he won a very very esteemed award for that so In a sales team, it's always important to be closing not to keep dragging the process because in government the process Already drags on don't help it get the process done quickly So typically the government expects you to have this particular type of sales team So you have a sales director. You have a account manager a business developer and then technical service So an account manager they're essentially they look after the existing clients they Educate existing clients with the new products and services that your organization is doing. They also Look after support for existing clients now the most important thing they do is they give The people in your client organization The ability to be first to know of what the market is doing which means those people can go to the boss and say hey There's this new thing called e-discovery. Have you heard about it? No? Well, I've heard about it Let me tell you and they look better in front of their boss business development That's hunting new business acquire new clients manage contracts go through that whole process so once the sales process is done The deal is signed the client is handed over to the account manager Then in the middle you've got the technical sales technical sales essentially is like The the person who says no we can't put a coffee pot in the tea in the refrigerator because we don't sell refrigerators So they create the solution set and they assist the business developer and the account manager and they provide essentially pre-sales support to get the whole process across the line The sales director is a very important role because that role essentially mediates between the sales The CEO and the customer They mediate the whole process to provide deals to say hey look Let's just give you a bit of a discount to make this deal go ahead because sometimes it may be important So they set the price they get the contracts done. They're essentially the key enabler of smooth function So this sales team is going to go out. They're going to go and make some stuff make some deals. It'll be awesome So let's talk about how to get funding from your clients Bad news Funding is allocated 12 to 18 months in advance Meaning if you're coming in and trying to have a quick sale There is highly likely that that budget unless it's been previously allocated just isn't there Now your project is going to be competing with a few other projects Which means that only some projects can go ahead and be Implemented and what that means is that the safe projects are going to go ahead of the risky ones. So what does it mean? well unlike traditional business you don't really have a A Sense of well if we get to the top the CIO the CFO the CEO will go and say yes make it happen It's a solution I need What happens is you've got two-fold competition and the competition has got nothing to do with your competitors It's got to do with the media and the public's perception of your department So the secretary has two aims and their two aims is this How can they make the minister achieve the outcome that the minister has said which means Changing the direction of the organization output to match that outcome. The second one is how can you make the public appreciate the organization and I think Kate touched on that this morning about having Being in a position where the public really Understands that a policy is successful and it's not a PR disaster even though the policy has done a good job So what does safe mean and we'll cover this off in a second safe means following due process It means respecting documentation privacy and security that the department needs now departments need Differing levels of both. So for example, if you're looking to make a website for Department of Defense That's a slightly different security requirement to making a website for the Department of Fish So make sure you respect the documentation and the security and the privacy that you need You need credibility Credibility is paramount in government. There is nothing more than losing a deal because you weren't credible and credible Means you have established Implementation in the marketplace you can point to say hey your colleagues have already done this You don't want to be behind the ball of your colleagues. They're ahead of you. Look. They've already using us You wouldn't say it in those terms, but it's very competitive in government. You don't want one counsel to outdo another give them both the way to Get ahead So you need to somehow get funding. So, you know that if you've got a solution that's safe You respect it all. How do you get funding? Well? There's what's called the funding threshold And that's this big scary thing. So you've got commonwealth procurement rules It's a document you can go look it up on the net and that tells you in Australia the rules You need to follow and the limit for Australia is $80,000 in New Zealand same document slightly in a different name and $100,000 so At the thresholds and this represents total contract value at this threshold The organization if they want to buy off you has to go to tender to public process Below the threshold they may still choose to go to tender, but they don't have to Which means if you give them a really good idea or really good reason why they should waive the tender process You won't have to go through the whole Lengthy documentation phase because it's a low-risk solution so above the threshold you might have You run into other thresholds that aren't publicly documented. So for example a CFO might only be able to sign $200,000 If your deal is above that it might have to be signed by the secretary who can only sign $400,000 and that's called delegated authority and that exists in enterprise as well now Anything more goes to the cabinet and the cabinet sits down once a year in something called the Financial and expenditure committee. It's a very very very scary term, isn't it? What it is it's the cabinet sits down and all the departments all the ministries basically say this is what we want to do Have our bucket of project ideas So the cabinet sits down for two weeks and they go through all the ideas and they allocate funding Now the cons the consequence of that particular process is that one project Has 40 seconds to one minute of airtime They look at it. Is this aligned to our strategic direction? Is this aligned to our ICT strategy that we've published last year? No in the bin next Nope in the next so that's how it happens because there is just so much competition So what that means is You need a really really really punchy story. So who was here at Kate Lundy's presentation this morning? Oh Wow, everyone fantastic almost everyone cool. So Did you notice how she was talking about the statistics that she represented? She said we had a 48 percent increase in uptake of this policy We had a 30 percent that is how ministers talk and the reason why they talk like that is because they have to Substantiate the outcome they said With what actually happened two years later. So this is the world they live in right now May not be the optimal world, but that's what they have to live right now. So Reminds me of a particular story Where this brief this abstract that went to the Financial Expenditure Committee? Went along the lines of hey we want to increase public transport efficiency by 30 percent and increase the travel satisfaction of citizens in Southern Queensland by 45 percent and to do that we just need two and a half million dollars. It's yeah Can anyone guess what the actual project they were suggesting was? Close they were wanting to buy a bunch of UV of V what are they called radios on Trains and buses so that the train could radio the bus and say hey, we're five minutes from station. Don't leave yet Now if they would have said hey, can we have two and a half million for radios? What would the committee say yeah Yeah, next so the abstract gets created by the CFO and the CIO and the secretary and that goes to cabinet What that means is a lot of people don't know and this is in the public sector a lot of them Don't know they have to create this and that it has to be short punchy and in the language of the ministers What that means for you is that you can go through and say hey Do you guys know that your project is going to be up for review if it is is there anything we can help to help you write that brief? because Ultimately you'll be in control of what goes to the minister because there's so many briefs to write They'll be more than happy to get you to help them to write this particular one So that's just something that that happens in the in the funding so We've got due process Now bureaucracy or red tape Unfortunately is the government's way of accountability So if you're sitting on the decision-making hot seat and you have to sign a check or sign something Then if you follow due process what that means is you're following something that has been Defined as being the most fair way to buy something now it may not be the best way but in terms of how Public servants are career people if the department has said follow this process because this is the best way for us to work And you don't follow it the news will spread that you're not quite following the policies of your government Again being a career person. You don't want to lose your career over something that simple So if you prove that you followed the meetings the process the forms the emails Then you're protected because you did the best thing you could under the situation If you did your due diligence if you did all the research you could you went to market the market responded You did the best thing you could The process is supreme what that means is that if you know the process Government organizations will be happy to work with you because you respect how they work And it's just a people thing if you respect a person they'll respect you back And that's the same on an organization scale as well so What's this thing about probity the term probity means being decent and fair So probity means that for example if you're a government organization you're going to market and you're going to spend 500,000 on goods and services around web Probity means that each organization is going to put in their best bid They're not going to collude to give you an inflated price Probity means that the organizations you deal with you don't then say to another organization. Oh, this was their bid Can you do better? It's a two-way relationship and probity insures the integrity of the government purchasing process and again this Latin phrase I can't pronounce it. Unfortunately, but what it means is who will guard the guardians and the probity process ensures that the government and the vendors are both being fair to each other so Let's have a look at some stages. You might see these in the market Essentially, these are definitions of stages So at the very start a government organization has a bright idea the light bulb goes ding song And they go right. I want to buy Widgets or kind of widgets. I don't know some of them So they create what's called an expression of interest an expression of interest is a document that goes into the marketplace and the marketplace responds and EOI gauges the market For their interest in doing what you've asked them to do because there's no point saying I want to buy a widget and the market says but we don't do widgets which is there. That's a silly idea So once you've done an EOI as a government organization, and you've got your results back You've got your vendors who are interested in responding you then go and do an RFI which is a request for information and RFI again goes to the market and it gauges the market solution maturity So what it does is everyone responds. Oh, yeah, we can make widgets out of duct tape and glue Yeah, the RFI uncovers how mature a solution to your particular business need is So then you've got the request for proposal or tender usually RFP RFT same name and That determines the best solution for your organization out of the available market So the market is interested the solutions the market Suggests are mature and RFP now picks the best one of them So then you go what's to what's called a preferred supplier and who's received a letter saying you're the preferred supplier for our Organization you guys have got that. Yep. What that means is okay. You're the one We're gonna try and negotiate with you. Give us your best price Give us your contracts. Let's try and make this work Because we really like how we can work together And then there's the signing of the contract the sales team rings the bell and it's all rainbows and unicorns and happiness and sunshine from there on so this process is the full process for example if an organization is going to Market for a web content management system. It's probably not going to do an EOI or an RFI It knows the marketplace has web content management systems the solutions are very mature We know the marketplace is interested in responding. Let's just save everyone's time go straight to RFP Buy off it and sign the deal get on with our jobs. So that process is linear So you get EOI through so you'd never go to an RFP and then back to an EOI that just doesn't happen which you go forward. So that's essentially the due process and At the end of the day, it's not that scary. Is it awesome, so That's more or less everything I wanted to cover. Are there any questions there is straight up Very good question. How do I know all this? Well The two documents that I listed before the mandatory rules for procurement and the common of buying rules Outline all of this in 120 pages and let's just say I had a spare weekend one Okay, so the question is what's the is it is it worth doing all this effort for what you get back out of it? That's a really it's a tough question to answer. Yes or no so One thing where you can see is when the contract is signed Then that contract represents essentially accepted cash flow So halfway through the contract unless you're really screwing things up halfway through the contract They're not going to back out and say hey, yeah, we're not going to pay you anymore So it because it's a government purchasing program It represents a certain surety of future cash flows and for a person planning their their business pipeline That can be a very safe Kind of sort of the minimum safe kind of thing that you do now the other thing with with government is that You get money from government that essentially you've put in so If you're not happy as an individual with how the government is managing your funds Then being part of the process that helps the government in being more efficient really helps you in return So there could be a bit of a self-interest Goal there where you say hey look I think that the government can do much better job using this solution now To really sort of get to the point of is it worth it? Well, if you have a dedicated sales team focusing on government Because it's such a slow process what that means is you can have so many different opportunities on the go at once and After the first 24 months, you'll essentially have all your ducks in a row going forward Which means that Potentially it is worth it, but it's not worth it straight away. So it'd be more of a strategic investment from that another question so the question is How do you find the RFP's and the answer is yes So how you find them is in Australia. It's called ostender It's a website and you subscribe to various categories of RFP in New Zealand. It's called gets and Government organizations are legislated to put everything on ostender or gets So you can there's tender link which is paid Yeah, there's tender link which is paid but ostender should be free But you have to go through a qualification process to say yes, I'm this organization. Yes, this is my address and that kind of stuff Definitely so the the tender The tender list is one of those things that should be available to the public for no charge that kind of thing It's that kind of this so the question is about panels. How do we work with panel say? Yeah So there's two types of of group buying that government has it's called syndicated procurement or panels syndicated procurement is when two or three ministries or departments come together and they do one RFP and They all can buy off that one process a panel is where that process happens But not necessarily anyone buys off at the end So you go through the RFP process and the end result is great You're allowed on a panel and so from that what what it means is that you're first and foremost as you mentioned So the government goes, okay, we need a web content management system Let's look at our panel and in Australia the the organization is Agimo Australian government information management office And that organization basically says these are the panels that we've got and you go to the panel and you say hey We're gonna contact these four Organizations and get them to do a closed tender potentially or get them to answer first So in terms of answering the question, I Would say that if you can get the hang of basic RFPs first Getting on a panel would be fantastic But it's a much longer process still That's right. Yeah So the question is how similar is the state process for the to the federal process in terms of states So you have buying groups in state governments So for example in New South Wales, there's the New South Wales procurement arm and they publish documents that essentially say This is what we can do as a state department so in Every state would have a similar type of procurement department Which will then give you guidance as to which panels which syndicated procurements are currently But I would say overall the best place to be is that on Agimo for federal because You can just carry over essentially Another question. Yes Yes Yeah, that's a really good point So just to repeat that that a lot of time the people on the other side who've got this big big pile of RFP response On their desk, they're going through and the answers aren't what was asked and so that can harm How well you're perceived because you didn't really answer the point of what I've asked so Make life easier for yourself and the people who have to review work Absolutely, yeah Cool. Are there any other questions? Yes So question is how would you avoid being sort of labeled as politically aligned when there's certain things going through in machinery of government change Okay, so in that the the top level of a Political Government structure would be the secretary so if you are really careful about your work and you Stop contacting above the secretary then essentially you're working with the department of government as opposed to with a particular Government in situ or a political party So I would say if you really if that's really a concern and it is a very valid concern when government changes Because all of a sudden you're now talking to the shadow government That's a very important point. Yeah, so keep talking at the secretary or CEO level to avoid getting labeled as friends of a specific party We we are out of time But look that was a fantastic session David I thought that that was very well measured very well informed and very Skillful and carefully stayed so could you please join me in thanking David Calcali? Excellent now as always your feedback would be much appreciated you you can find the feedback form on the Session page for this for this session Next we have coffee for half an hour and lucky last session at a quarter to four. Thank you very much