The BBC has launched a new framework agreement searching for partners in a planned £12 million project to support its planned digital overhaul.
According to the framework, the BBC is looking for suppliers to provide bespoke digital services and solutions for the following eight digital services categories: web development, mobile app development, backend development, third party maintenance, emerging technologies, data science and machine learning, design and UX and host and operate.
Suppliers responding to the tender will be required to apply for and be successfully awarded a minimum of three of these digital services categories in order to secure a place on the framework.
The framework adds that suppliers may be required to work across the BBC’s digital portfolio including, but not limited to, childrens and education, news, sport, sounds, home, iPlayer and TV. Suppliers may also be required to provide services across a variety of bespoke internal staff facing or other user-facing applications.
The broadcaster expects to spend between £500,000 and £3 million a year under the two-year framework, which runs from October 2020 to 2022, but it could rise to £12 million if the project is extended by two years.
In its recent Annual Plan, the BBC revealed plans to encourage more BBC Online users to sign-in, enabling it to track data across multiple platforms and applications, as it aims to secure “the data we need to make our online products feel like they are part of a single, consistent and personalised whole.”
It wants to make linear and on-demand products work together better, stating, “The longer-term trends of global and technology-led disruption have not let up. If anything, this crisis is set to accelerate those trends. So the BBC’s strategy to respond to them must accelerate as well.”
