Digital Transformation in Government Insight #12:
Australia’s Digital Marketplace

What is the Digital Marketplace?

Back in April theDTO launched theDigital Marketplace panel, inviting businesses to respond to a request for tender. While most digital businesses like Salsa Digital have been following this process closely, today we wanted to blog about the marketplace from the other side, the government perspective.

The Digital Marketplace will provide all levels of government access to a list of digital suppliers that have been pre-approved for government contracts. The aim is to make it easier and faster for agencies to select a vendor — and to ensure the vendors are experienced and professional providers. In ablog post earlier this year, the DTO said: “We think this will give government access to a wide range of innovative and agile suppliers to help us with digital transformation.”

As noted above, the marketplace will focus on agile providers, because this is an area of service delivery that the DTO sees as essential for digital transformation and project deliverables within tight timeframes.

At this stage, the digital specialists have been broken into the following categories:

• Product management

• Business analysis

• Delivery management and agile coaching

• User research

• Service design and interaction design

• Technical architecture, development, ethical hacking, and web operations

• Performance and web analytics

• Inclusive design and accessibility

• Digital transformation advisors

The Digital Marketplace is currently in the discovery phase, with an alpha due for release later this year, and the Beta version slated for early 2017.

The UK model

Australia’s Digital Marketplace is inspired by theUK’s version, which was launched in April this year and forms part ofGOV.UK. The UK service is split into two components:

1. G-Cloud (for cloud-based services)

2. Digital Outcomes and Specialists

Earlier this year, the DTO and the UK’s Government Digital Services (GDS) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to promote collaboration between our two countries when it comes to digital transformation. The premise is simple: governments around the world are facing the same challenges and collaboration and knowledge sharing makes sense. Why not learn from another country’s wins (and problems)?

Digital Marketplace and the DTO

The Digital Marketplace project is one ofnine key areas/projects the DTO is currently working on. We’ve blogged about two of the others in this Digital Transformation in Government series, specificallyGOV.AU anddigital identity.

The Digital Marketplace is also part of theNational Innovation and Science Agenda.

Salsa Digital’s take

Obviously as a digital provider that already services many government agencies we’re excited by the prospect of the Digital Marketplace, and of being on a pre-approved list of vendors who deliver excellence. The benefits to government are also clear to us - agencies will have a dedicated list of providers, a starting point for all digital projects. And these providers will have already been vetted by government.