Superhighways 3rd Party Support (contracting)

Your organisation may need products and services that Superhighways cannot directly supply. For example a particular piece of hardware or software; a website; a new database, or someone to train a member of your team on using a specific application.

Selecting and working with commercial ICT suppliers can be difficult.

Here’s a few possible reasons why:

• Your objectives are charitable but your suppliers’ objectives will be (largely) commercial
• Your priorities, and your sense of what represents good value for money in an ICT investment, will be markedly different from your supplier
• Your ICT knowledge will be (probably) much less than your supplier
• ICT suppliers will frequently disagree with each other, making it very hard for you to know whom you should believe

Superhighways can help you select a supplier and build an effective, beneficial relationship.

For starters, the Superhighways Associate Member (SAM) programme will offer you an easy-to-use list of ‘approved’ suppliers who have signed up to our published Minimum Standards. Associate Members make a financial contribution to support our running costs and we would always encourage you to include members of the SAM programme in any short-list or tendering exercise.

We can help you choose whom to work with: we can help you draw up ‘invitations to tender’ documents and select a short-list or suppliers; we work with you to assess proposals and help you check through the terms and conditions they suggest.

Once you’ve chosen your supplier and started working with them, we can help you ensure they keep to their side of the bargain and treat you fairly.

Remember, Superhighways is in a position to recommend and comment upon plenty of business for commercial ICT suppliers. You are likely to get better treatment and better prices from them if you have Superhighways ‘in your corner’.