Customers are at the heart of BT’s Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN) offer – and here’s how one member has benefited from the transition to the new national service offer.
In a question and answer session, Stephen Sharkey, Head of IT Service Delivery at SQA, sets out how his organisation is already realising the benefits of membership.
Tell us a little bit about your role at the SQA and the responsibilities you have?
As Head of IT Service Delivery, I manage a team of 70 IT professionals and am responsible for providing IT services and support across SQA. Within Service Delivery we have a number of teams that help operate and continuously improve upon our IT services, these include:
- Service Operations – provides 1st, 2nd and 3rd line support via our IT Service Desk, Desktop Engineering and Product Maintenance teams.
- Platform Services – covering all aspects of IT Infrastructure from environments, telephony, storage, servers, databases and much more.
- Service Transition – ensuring a smooth experience of anything new or changing in the IT space and includes testing, release and deployment.
- Service Performance – covers all service management processes with a laser focus on Asset Management, Major Incident and Change Management.
- Vendor Management – engaging with our external suppliers and partners to ensure SQA, as a customer, receive the service that we are entitled to.
- Account Management – engaging with our internal customers to ensure they receive the service they are entitled to.
What services have you recently procured through the SWAN framework?
- Direct Internet Access Services
- Resilient private network connections between sites
- Maintenance, Support and Licensing for internal network infrastructure
What outcomes or benefits do you hope to achieve, and how does this align with your strategic priorities and vision?
The new SWAN framework will provide increased value for money due to lower costs and a faster procurement route. The framework will provide services which align with our current IT strategy, enabling a scalable, resilient and secure IT infrastructure to support our current and future business needs.
What do you see as the main benefits to the SQA of being a SWAN member and procuring services through the SWAN framework?
One of the main benefits of being a SWAN member is the access we have to the various IT products and services that are available via the service catalogue. In addition, BT’s Value Added Services provide SQA with access to a wealth of expertise in other IT areas such as design, maintenance, support and network security.
What is your overall experience as a member of SWAN 2 since BT took over the contract in April 2023?
We have built up a good relationship with the BT team in the first year of this contract and have been extremely impressed with the level of professionalism demonstrated by the team.
