Scottish based GIS company thinkWhere has been awarded a place on the UK Government’s G-Cloud 11 framework agreement. Designed to ease the procurement of cloud services by the public sector this approval will allow local, central and associated government organisations find, review and compare thinkWhere’s advanced Geographical Information System (GIS) cloud hosting, software and support services via an online Digital Marketplace. Acceptance to G-Cloud 11 will also enable organisations to contract geospatial products and services from thinkWhere using pre-existing framework agreements.
In a separate award, thinkWhere has also achieved the highest international standards for quality management systems following the achievement of ISO 9001 for the ninth year running. Recognising strong customer focus and business ethos, this re-certification to the international quality management system standard confirms thinkWhere’s strong motivation and implication of top management, a process approach and continuous improvement.
“This is an exciting time to be developing and delivering advanced geospatial solutions,” commented Alan Moore, CEO of thinkWhere. “Government organisations are striving to perform against a backdrop of challenges however initiatives such as G-Cloud will ensure that geospatial technologies, such as those provided by thinkWhere, will underpin informed decision making and effective service delivery whilst accreditation under the ISO 9001 standard will help us to maintain the highest standards solution delivery.”
The G-Cloud framework was launched in 2012 and was held up as an exemplar of IT procurement. G-Cloud allows organisations to purchase services from a wide pool of suppliers with particular emphasis on small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). There are currently around 3,500 suppliers listed on the framework with SME organisations like thinkWhere making up around 90 per cent. According to the published figures more than 3 billion pounds of G-Cloud sales have already been made, with 48 per cent of that spend going directly to SMEs.
The thinkWhere products and services covered by the G-Cloud award comprise GIS Data as a Service including Ordnance Survey and Collins Bartholomew data, geospatial cloud software; Location Centre and groundMapper, and support services including consultancy, training and development. This is the fifth year running that thinkWhere products and service have been accepted on the G-Cloud framework agreement.
thinkWhere is already delivering and supporting innovative projects using cloud based, open source geospatial technologies working alongside UK government organisations such as Falkirk Council, South Downs National Park Authority, Ofgem and Digital Scotland.
