PS26330 - Enterprise Tenancy Consultancy

UK SBS on behalf or UK Research and Innovation are undertaking pre-market engagement with Suppliers that may be able to provide the following services:

1. Overview

UKRI currently operates a federated technology estate serving multiple organisational entities. The principal Microsoft 365 consolidation scope comprises approximately six to seven Microsoft 365 tenancies, supported by a wider set of identity, endpoint, security and associated technical environments.

UKRI has developed an interim set of high-level draft standards and has undertaken initial tenancy-level assessments against that baseline. UKRI is also undertaking an entity-level assessment of the changes and implications associated with migration readiness. These materials will be provided to the successful supplier as inputs. The supplier will be expected to review, challenge and supplement the material where necessary, rather than repeat discovery without reference to the work already completed.

The project seeks to define, design and deliver this new environment using a Standards-based approach to Microsoft cloud services that will deliver consistency, simplicity, security, compliance, operational efficiency and an improved user experience across UKRI.

This procurement is for specialist consultancy services to support the Design Stage of the project. The successful supplier will work with UKRI to deliver the design, encompassing cloud architecture, governance and assurance activities, and will have experience of migration planning, compliance and secure by design principles, enabling informed decisions for future implementation and supportability.

The authority is specifically seeking a supplier that possesses a mature and proven Microsoft 365 standards framework developed through practical operational experience. UKRI's objective is to leverage existing industry best practice wherever possible rather than develop entirely new standards from first principles.

Accordingly, UKRI requires specialist consultancy support to complete the design phase and establish the standards, principles and architectural decisions necessary to support subsequent delivery phases.

The authority anticipates that future procurements may be undertaken for implementation, migration, operational support, managed services and ongoing governance arrangements. Those activities are expressly outside the scope of this procurement.

The outputs from this engagement will form the basis of future procurement activities and subsequent implementation phases.

This procurement does not include build, migration, operational support, managed services or implementation activities.

2. Objectives

The successful supplier shall:

Target Architecture Design

Produce detailed and comprehensive designs for the New World, that encompasses all in scope elements, services and operations supporting the key aim of a unified, single strategic (tenancy) platform for UKRI.

This will follow the agreed Standards Based approach.

Sub-deliverables linked to this primary outcome will include but are not limited to the following:

Discovery and Assessment

Undertake brief review of the current UKRI tenancies and Microsoft landscape, including:

• Existing tenancy configurations.
• Identity and access management arrangements.
• Collaboration services.
• Security and compliance controls.
• Endpoint management approaches.
• Operational management arrangements.
• Existing governance models.

Enterprise Standards Development

Develop and tailor a comprehensive standards framework covering the future target operation model (e.g. a Microsoft cloud operating model)

Target-State Design

Produce target-state designs covering all agreed in-scope elements, services and capabilities.

Knowledge Transfer

Transfer sufficient knowledge and documentation to UKRI personnel to enable future governance and standards ownership.

3. In Scope

The supplier shall provide consultancy services relating to:

• Strategy and Architecture

o Enterprise architecture.

o Solution architecture.

o Microsoft 365 architecture.

o Azure architecture where directly relevant to Microsoft 365 services.

o Operating model design.

o Governance model development.

• Standards Development

o Development and tailoring of standards covering:

o Microsoft Entra.

o Exchange Online.

o SharePoint Online.

o OneDrive.

o Microsoft Teams.

o Microsoft Intune.

o Windows, MacOS and Linux Endpoint management.

o Microsoft Defender.

o Microsoft Sentinel.

o Microsoft Purview.

o Microsoft Copilot.

o Identity and access management.

o Privileged access management.

o Endpoint security.

o Mobility and device management - across Windows, MacOS and Linux

o Compliance and information governance.

o Tenant administration.

o Service operations.

o Monitoring and reporting.

• Assessment Activities

o Current-state assessment.

o Multi-tenant comparison and analysis.

o Standards conformance assessment.

o Gap identification.

o Exception identification.

o Design remediation recommendations.

• Design Deliverables

o Target-state architecture, high-level and low-level design documents

o Standards catalogue.

o Governance model.

o Design principles.

o Design decision register.

o Architecture roadmap.

o Standards exception framework.

The supplier shall bring an existing, mature and operationally proven Microsoft 365 and Azure standards framework and work collaboratively with UKRI to tailor, refine and adopt a comprehensive set of standards appropriate for the future UKRI Microsoft cloud estate.

The agreed standards baseline will form the foundation for all subsequent design activities and will be considered the primary output of the initial phase of the engagement.

Following development and acceptance of the standards baseline, the supplier shall identify, define and produce the high-level and low-level design artefacts necessary to describe the future-state environment and support future implementation planning and procurement activities.

UKRI does not prescribe the exact number, structure or scope of those design artefacts in advance. These shall be determined through discovery, standards development and assessment of the current estate. The successful supplier will be expected to apply professional judgement and industry best practice to determine the appropriate suite of architecture and design documentation required.

Required Outcomes

Outcome 1 - Enterprise Standards Baseline Design

Outcome 2 - Target-State Architecture and Design

Outcome 3 - Standards Adoption and Complexity Assessment

Outcome 4 - Governance and Standards Management Framework

Outcome 5 - Future Delivery Enablement

Out of Scope

The following activities are expressly excluded:

• Tenant builds.
• Tenant configuration.
• Tenant migrations.
• User migrations.
• Data migrations.
• Email migrations.
• Device migrations.
• Implementation services.
• Managed services.
• Service desk services.
• End-user support.
• Training delivery to end users.
• Production service management.
• Licensing procurement.
• Technology procurement.

4. Indicative Budget

For the Services required, we have an estimated project budget of £250,000.00 excluding VAT.

5. In Scope

At this stage the Contracting Authority is still reviewing its options on route to market and market insight on if / how the Services we are looking for could be achieved.

To support this, we are requesting interested Suppliers to provide responses to a few validation questions which can be found within the below link by COP Monday 16th November 2026:

forms.cloud.microsoft/e/0Q9hH876hy ↗