A retained advisory partnership gave a government-owned water utility on-demand resilience expertise and an independent electronic security tender specification for its system upgrade.
THE CHALLENGE
A government-owned water utility provides essential water, wastewater and recycled water services, which makes security and organisational resilience a core operating requirement. It needed to align its security and resilience arrangements with evolving expectations, including the Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF), and wanted flexible access to specialist advice spanning policy, emergency management, business continuity and technical security. At the same time, its core electronic security management system needed a major upgrade. The internal team wanted independent support to define business requirements, prepare an open-tender specification and evaluate vendor responses, which called for expertise in both resilience and security technology. The utility wanted confidence that the resulting system would be fit for purpose and aligned with its operational needs.
OUR APPROACH
Agilient was engaged as a retained, multi-disciplinary partner providing business resilience advisory services. Under this model the utility could draw on a panel of Agilient subject matter experts on demand, with a single point of coordination to maintain quality and continuity. Within the retained arrangement, Agilient led development of the tender specification for the new electronic security management system. The team first reviewed existing system documentation to understand the technical context. A workshop with internal stakeholders from ICT, property, procurement and business resilience then defined the business requirements, which were captured in a concise brief. Using that validated foundation, Agilient wrote a detailed specification for an open market process. It also prepared an independent cost estimate for the upgrade to inform internal budgeting, and later provided technical review of the shortlisted tenders to support the utility’s procurement decision.
THE OUTCOME
The utility gained ongoing access to specialist resilience advice and an independent, technically sound basis for a critical technology upgrade.
- A retained advisory model that reduced key-person dependency and gave on-demand access to specialist expertise
- A stakeholder-validated requirements brief and detailed open-tender specification for the electronic security management system
- An independent cost estimate for internal budgeting and technical review of shortlisted tenders
Related services: electronic security consultant, independent CCTV consultant, business resilience programs. Sector experience: utilities security consultants and critical infrastructure security consultant. To discuss a similar project, contact Agilient.