This page was last updated on 13 February, 2007 at 11:42

Sollerta has experience in the development of business plans to support the release of funds from a fund holder, which could be the  management board of a company or public sector body,a venture capitalist organisation or a bank. The business plan entails the description of the proposal in clear and understandable language, together with a detailed financial model covering all aspects of expenditure and the potential benefits. The financial model allows various assumptions to be explored with discounted cash flows and other financial performance measures being demonstrated. The service we offer includes a full appraisal of cost effectiveness  and analysis of risk.

Contact us for more details and a demonstration of our approach to financial modeling

Developing a response to a tender is an expensive undertaking. No matter how much effort is spent, the bid will fail if all the questions set out by the customer are not responded to.

Likewise, developing a tender requires careful thought and a balance between fully defining the requirements and acceptance criteria and avoiding over specification.   

Sollerta has experience in all aspects of the tender process: the development of the tender; including marking schemes to evaluate bids in response to the tender; the the analysis of company bids; and also most recently, from the other side of the fence, the preparation of bids themselves.

Sollerta can assist your company either in management and drafting of a tender to be sent out to subcontractors or in the management and drafting of a company bid in response to a tender.

One outcome of Sir Peter Gershon’s review of public sector projects is the recognition that projects benefit from independent assessments at key decision points. The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) has now determined that acquisition programmes and procurement projects in central civil government are now to be subject to OGC Gateway Reviews at their key decision points. The MoD has set up an equivalent system known as ‘Key Stage Peer Reviews’ for its projects.

The Review Team is composed of people with general and specific expert knowledge to be able to carry out an intensive review (lasting between 3 to 5 days), interviewing members of the project team, the customer and the other stakeholders. At the end of this, the team presents a short focused report with up to about 12 recommendations. Often some of these will require immediate action to respond to them; others may be observations. It is generally considered that a Gateway or Key Stage Peer Review is of great benefit to a project manager.

While the focus of the Gateway review has been on public sector projects, similar disciplines have been applied to projects in the private sector.

Sollerta consultants are accredited Gateway Reviewers, having undergone formal training and carried out a number of reviews in the past year. One of our consultants is also trained as a team leader.

In this activity we have been acting as subcontractors to AMTEC Consulting Group who hold the contracts to supply the Key Stage Peer Review teams to clients.

Sollerta offers a service to lead or contribute to such reviews to the benefit of your project.

Sollerta carries out rapid market surveys on behalf of Clients. These surveys are within the technical domain knowledge of the Sollerta team members and usually entail interviewing the potential customers to assess their forward planning and possible future requirements. (The do not mention the Client’s name, if the Client so wishes). We produce a market survey report with a commentary based on our knowledge of the organisation and technology.

In service support of equipment has often been the neglected area of procurement, and often with so many lines of expenditure from different budgets, it is often difficult to know what the actual cost of ownership is. Yet it has the biggest impact on the customer or user. Logistic arrangements are an important factor in the cost of ownership. In the supply and retail area, sales are subject to seasonal demand variations, congestion on the roads, the weather or the need to be first in the market place. (In the 19th century, the tea clippers arriving first at London could command higher prices before the rival ships arrived and the market saturated). Goods in transit represent a cost to the supplier and the cost of time is important.

Sollerta has a number of skills to offer in this area. Firstly being very much involved in the support of equipment, we know how to turn a disparate collection of expenditure lines into a structured project where savings can be identified more easily. Our work in Ship Repair and Refit is an example of this. Secondly, we have experience of the retail process through our work with high street retailers. We can advise on the distribution issues in this country. We have designed a high speed ship for fast transport of containers. Finally we have carried out studies with business associates in Europe addressing multimodal issues, marine freight and its economics (with naval architect expertise to address current and future ship designs), short sea shipping and inland waterways, port infrastructure and the environment.

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Sollerta can call on over 100 years of in-depth experience of the management of projects ranging from the research area, through the development of specialised, high-technology equipment, including associated works services and life-cycle support ; to service delivery and refits of large warships. This includes the use of acquisition techniques developed in the Offshore Industry and taken up as ‘Smart Acquisition’ by the MoD over recent years. We offer the full range of Project Management disciplines and techniques including Risk Analysis, Requirement Capture & Management and Earned Value Analysis but ensure that these are applied in a pragmatic way to embed them in the culture of the project.
                                                                                                                    
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Sollerta's has experience in the field of contracting from both the Customer and the supplier point of view. This pragmatic view of both sides of a contractual relationship can assist Companies in resolving difficulties - even disputes - that arise from the complex documentation and procedures that are employed.

SOLLERTA OFFERS AN EXTENSIVE SET OF SKILLS