Blog

Infoshare and Atos collaborate to bring SME innovation to the Public Sector


by Victoria Thomason

10 Dec 2021

atos logoAtos Horizons is a pioneering programme that brings their Public Sector and Defence customers the best talent and solutions from the UK and Ireland SME community, safely and at scale. Infoshare has been part of the programme since its inception and has worked successfully with Atos to provide master data management solutions to a range of public sector organisations, such as the Welsh Government, Royal Mail, and NS&I.

 

Harnessing the power of SMEs

The programme is an impressive demonstration of Atos’ determination to deliver tailored innovation, by working with a carefully curated selection of agile and proven experts. SMEs employ 16.8m people in the UK, which is 61% of working people in the country. There is a vast wealth of originality, creativity, and agility to be found when working with SMEs. Yet historically these types of businesses can be overlooked, with larger organisations being favoured to provide end-to-end solutions.

 

Supporting the Government Small Business Agenda

This was the driving force behind the creation of the Cabinet Office’s Small Business panel (which our own CEO Pamela Cook sits on) and the Government’s desire to include more SMEs in public sector supply chains. There has been a shift in view in the public sector that has acknowledged the value that smaller businesses can deliver. This has been reinforced by the drive to not only spend more with SMEs, but also to make the procurement and payments system quicker and fairer.

Atos’s dedication to bringing SMEs into the conversation, demonstrates that they recognise the value smaller suppliers deliver. However, it also aligns with the Government’s own priority of working with more smaller businesses. Considering SMEs are responsible for approximately half the turnover in the UK private sector, supporting UK small businesses supports the UK economy.

 

Pamela Cook, Infoshare CEO said: “We’re delighted to have been a part of the Atos Horizons Programme since the beginning. We have collaborated on many projects over the years to deliver our expertise and innovation into their clients. They are a shining example of how to curate and utilise a SME partner ecosystem to deliver cutting-edge technologies and specialist expertise to meet their clients’ needs.

“There is sometimes trepidation over working with smaller businesses, due to the fear factor or working with someone new or unfamiliar. Atos alleviates that fear, by keeping their ecosystem small and ensuring all partners go through rigorous due diligence.

“Being one of the few selected partners to work with Atos as part of their ecosystem is a recognition of our proven capability to deliver, of which I am extremely proud. I’m looking forward to a long future of working together to provide data quality and management solutions at scale.”

 

Mike Guida from Atos said: “Our customers, from the Home Office to Ministry of Defence, need access to digital innovation from a diverse range of suppliers, to keep up to speed with technological change. Atos recognises the importance of SME innovation to the Public Sector. Through its Horizons SME Programme, it is committed to supporting the Government’s aim of ensuring a greater proportion of public procurement spend goes to SMEs.

It’s therefore an absolute pleasure working with partners such as Infoshare, as they share our enthusiasm for customer innovation and unleashing the power of data through single view of truth software to reduce fraud, debt and error, enabling longer-term digital transformation and reinvention of critical public services.”

 

 

For more information on the programme, visit the Atos Horizons page.

 

Stats from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy