CloudSource is a London-headquartered Microsoft Solutions Partner that specialises in providing Digital Transformation, Strategy, and Delivery services to Public Sector organisations. CloudSource’s technology excellence with Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Platform and Azure Services, coupled with the knowledge of Regulatory, Compliance, and Transparency business processes, make them a powerful partner for UK Public Sector organisations who need to meet today’s digital expectations.

The company was formed in 2010, with their business heavily based on providing Microsoft expertise to their customers. As it grew, CloudSource brought a wealth of key expertise on board, including (in 2015) CTO Ashish Kapoor, and – the following year – project delivery specialist Ed Pearce. In 2017, CloudSource became a Bramble Hub partner, which brought the company’s expertise within easier reach of public sector buyers.

As a partnership, we have won a series of significant projects over the past five years. So we recently sat down with CloudSource’s Managing Director, Mark Williams, to discuss half a dozen of our successful project deliveries. These projects were delivered via a range of Crown Commercial Service frameworks, including Data and Application Solutions, Corporate Software Solutions (now closed), G-Cloud and Digital Outcomes and Specialists.

HS2 – Health Exposure Monitoring Solution (HEMS)

Among our early joint projects was an Internet of Things (IoT) project for HS2, the huge project intended to bring Britain’s railways into the 21st Century. CloudSource was tasked with creating a solution that monitored environmental quality at HS2 building sites via a plethora of IoT devices that collected on-site data. The data was collected and put into Microsoft Azure. CloudSource then built a dashboard that allowed thresholds and alerts to be managed, so that HS2 could maintain acceptable levels of pollutants, noise and vibration. Mark says: “No such solution existed off the shelf: we had to do the R&D, and build it from scratch”.

Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) – Modernisation of Technology Service (MOTS)

The MOTS project has been a great success for the CloudSource / Bramble Hub partnership. From the start, the scope of the project was ambitious: “Lots of line-of-business systems, lots of data, hundreds of users”, says Mark.

“We were replatforming all of their business responsibilities onto Dynamics 365, Azure and Power Platform. Our knowledge of those technologies, coupled with our knowledge of the regulation industry won this for us.””

Since that first win two years ago, the NMC has awarded us a number of further project extensions, the most recent phase having been awarded in recent weeks.

The Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat)

Ofwat has been another repeat customer, and another demonstration of CloudSource’s vertical strength in regulation. The initial project, awarded in 2019 was to migrate an on-premises Microsoft system into Dynamics 365 and the cloud. “What we did was about replatforming business processes into the cloud, retiring on-prem systems in the process. As with all of our projects, we took an Agile/Scrum approach, using MS Project and Azure DevOps,” explains Mark.

Defra – One Stop Shop for Regulators

Although a relatively small project, the Defra-funded creation of a one stop shop for government regulators helped put CloudSource on the map. The project created a centralized portal for customers that intelligently transferred each request to the right organization.

“The significant aspect of that project was the cross-department aspect. We showed that we could work with multiple government departments, which aren’t always great at working together. The project really boosted our profile as a regulator specialist – at the moment, a hundred percent of our pipeline is regulatory”

Pensions regulator CloudSource advised the Pensions Regulator on migrating to a cloud platform. “That was about assessing their technology to be migrated to Microsoft cloud and advising on their roadmap, pointing out the pitfalls, so they could do it themselves,” Mark says. “It was a pre-project phase, where we asked ‘Are these the right systems, are we barking up the right tree?’ We bridged a skills shortage, and supplied skills they didn’t have internally in order to get the project off the ground.”

The Pension Protection Fund (PPF)

The PPF’s role is to take control of pension schemes for organisations that go into liquidation. In 2021, CloudSource worked on a project to modernise the PPF’s pension scheme assessment process.

The power of partnership

For Mark Williams, CloudSource’s track record is testament to the strength of their specialisms in Microsoft technologies, coupled with their ongoing accumulation of knowledge about the business of regulation. Without Bramble Hub, and our thin-prime model, it would be hard for public sector buyers to access the skills of small and medium expert businesses like CloudSource.

He concludes that “… working with Bramble Hub has been key to building our business by providing a path to access many high-profile public sector clients, guided by Bramble Hub’s invaluable experience and sector expertise.”