What’s new on G-Cloud 9?

We have been providing services on G-Cloud since 2012. We joined for its second iteration - "G-Cloud ii" listing our services first on the CloudStore and now the DigitalMarketplace. Last week, G-Cloud 9 launched and it has been a significant change so we wanted to take some time to highlight what's new.

New categories

Firstly the categories of service have been updated.

G-Cloud originally divided services into 4 lots:

• Lot 1 – Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
• Lot 2 – Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• Lot 3 – Software as a Service (SaaS)
• Lot 4 – Specialist Cloud Services (SCS)

Now, we have just three categories:

• Cloud hosting
• Cloud software
• Cloud support

The reason for the change was that the old structure was confusing for buyers and it didn't represent the marketplace accurately.

 

No overlap of G-Cloud frameworks

Secondly, there is now a single iteration of G-Cloud. Previously, there have always been two overlapping G-Cloud frameworks. G-Cloud 6 & 7, then 7 & 8 were both live at the same time for example. The reason for this method was sound enough (from a Government tender and procurement perspective), but the result was a messy marketplace. As a buyer when you searched for a service you would often be presented with two the same service, from the same supplier twice.

For the first time, G-Cloud 9 is now the only version of the framework and it replaces both G-Cloud 7 & 8.

These are the two most fundamental changes – but there were many other improvements this time round regarding the type of information that the suppliers were required to provide. In some cases it improved side-by-side comparison of services and in others it provided the opportunity for suppliers to add detail and show what differentiates their services.

So far, the changes look to be a success. We have been strong supporters of GDS since it took over G-Cloud. We've been a part of their testing and research with both suppliers and buyers and we really value their user-focus.

We also want to applaud GDS for their transparency in their process. They publish the details about what they are doing, how they are changing and why on their blog. This post about the preparation for G-Cloud 9 is a great example.

To us, it felt that initially, G-Cloud was 'sold' to the suppliers as a great chance to win public sector contracts. For SME suppliers like Databarracks, we had often struggled to do business with the public sector because most IT contracts weren't suitable for SMEs. They were large contracts that only a handful of the larger Systems Integrators were able to fulfil. The opportunity to provide services on a marketplace or cloud store was, and is something that excited the SME community. G-Cloud had immediate success due to that supplier enthusiasm and some 'cloud-first' drives from Central Government.

After the honeymoon period ended it became clear that there was still a lot of work to do. Issues with search functionality and the way services were presented to buyers was making buying through G-Cloud difficult. In addition, awareness and a willingness to use G-Cloud in the wider public sector was low.

These aren't issues that can be solved immediately or without a lot of hard work, but the incremental improvement with each iteration is helping G-Cloud to become the transformational framework we all hoped it would be.