Microsoft Support · UK public procurement notice

This contract is proposed for direct award to Microsoft under the grounds of absence of competition for technical reasons, in accordance with the Procurement Act 2023.

Wales & West Utilities currently utilises its parent company's Group Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft for the provision of critical cloud and workplace services, including IaaS, PaaS via Microsoft Azure, and Modern Workplace services through Microsoft 365.

The organisation requires enhanced support for these services to ensure service levels exceed the standard offering, particularly for production systems hosted within the cloud environment. Microsoft Unified Support provides this enhanced capability and is intrinsically linked to Microsoft's proprietary technology stack and existing enterprise agreement structure.

Due to the technical integration, dependency on Microsoft's platform, and the necessity for vendor-specific expertise to maintain and support these services at the required level, no alternative supplier is capable of delivering an equivalent service.

On this basis, Microsoft is considered the only supplier capable of delivering the required services, and a direct award is therefore justified.