Global Insurance Services Provider

The Client, a worldwide insurance provider, sought to strategically procure two European Data Centres located in Germany.

PTS was engaged to assist the Client, building out the base requirements, selecting a long list of providers and agreeing and actioning this down to a 12-candidate short-list, managing the Request for Proposal (RFP) process, and finally performing due diligence assessments on the final two candidate sites to validate the selection decision. The RFP process involved developing a scoring method, evaluation criteria, and producing a recommendation report for the Client. In carrying out the PTS STARS™ assessment of the final two candidate sites, PTS collected and evaluated all data required, building an evaluation and facility assessment report for the Client to discuss with non-technical executive management.

Governance Structures

PTS built an excellent, collaborative relationship with the Client, which helped to ensure that key stakeholders were fully engaged with the project and that the Client worked well with the PTS team. By ensuring that the right governance structure was in place, and through identifying the key decision metrics, PTS was able to meet the demands of the Client, the Senior Decision Makers and the Executive Sponsor.

The RFP Process

Having previously worked with the Client in multiple locations worldwide, PTS was able to leverage its institutional knowledge and the existing developed templates and methods during the RFP process, gaining quick agreement with the Client for their use. This facilitated the rapid development, publication and evaluation of tenders providing the Client with an independent, objective review of all candidate facilities across Germany and an additional facility included at a late stage in France.

PTS STARS™ Assessment

Having previously experienced the benefits of the proprietary PTS STARS™ Data Centre Assessment, the client now insists that a full STARS™ assessment is carried out against any future candidate Data Centre site globally that has the potential to be a corporate Data Centre partner. PTS undertook the assessments and produced a comparative report/matrix of key Data Centre metrics for the two sites. PTS STARS™ consultants reviewed all aspects of the location from the external environment, the facility condition and accessibility, through operational and security staff reviews, formulating this into an in-depth physical and operational audit of the facility. Once all the data was accumulated and evaluated, PTS provided the Client with a single collated assessment report, together with a risk evaluation, enabling the Client to make an informed, confident, technical, and commercial decision as to whether they had selected sites that fulfilled their physical audit, operational and security requirements.

With the business imperative to hedge the organisation against the potential negative influences of both GDPR and the UK Brexit strategy, the Client’s demands for data sovereignty were paramount, and this made the exercise an essential investment in locating strategic facilities.

The selection of the appropriate providers in the correct locations was the overriding objective. By leveraging PTS’s vast Data Centre experience and engaging with the client on a collegiate rather than traditional customer-supplier basis, the Client was able to meet its objectives and accelerate the Data Centre site selection process.

True vendor independence, coupled with our significant Data Centre facility and operational expertise, meant that PTS could act as both a critical friend to the Client, but also manage the project and its resources in a way that allowed it to continue its Business-As-Usual activities uninterrupted whilst being confident that the project was progressing to plan in a systematic and collaborative manner.

This excellent relationship with the Client put PTS in a position to work with the Insurance Services Provider on future projects, including the planning and implementation of the migration of services from the existing UK facilities to the new German Data Centre facilities.