MOD appoints Constellia to accelerate procurement

Homeland September 18, 2024

Constellia has announced that it has been awarded the NVFi (Neutral Vendor Framework for Innovation (NVFi) [Award]) by the MOD to compliantly and transparently increase speed and value for money in digital and innovation procurement as part of the MOD’s procurement reform. The NVFi has been developed to bring new technologies to users faster and to work with suppliers to address entry barriers for SMEs.

Constellia’s CEO, Rob Levene commented: “Driving technological advantage and innovation is at the cornerstone of the MOD’s digital strategy. We are thrilled to be able to work with and be the commercial vehicle that accelerates innovative technology into operational deployment, giving His Majesty’s Government (HMG) a strategic technological advantage, whilst continuing to support start-ups and small businesses. At Constellia, we are committed to supporting the MODs SME Action Plan in improving access for Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) to do business with defence, as well as enabling exciting opportunities for new, non-traditional, and adjacent sectors to support innovation.”

Dina Kakaras, Head of Commercial X said: “The NVFi will be an amazing resource for our government Commercial officers to use in order to bring in and scale some of the new technology use cases that we have in Defence. We are thrilled to be collaborating with the Defence Innovation Unit on this and to be supporting industry to help us find brilliant ideas, brilliant suppliers and do so at the pace of relevance.”

Victoria Cope, Commercial Director of Defence Digital commented: “NVFi is a great example of how we are raising the bar commercially in the digital and innovation space. Creating innovative, agile and scalable routes to market for defence capability whilst introducing new, creative and pioneering digital suppliers to the Defence and security ecosystem.”

The NVFi also supports the Defence Innovation Unit (DIU) delivery and John Ridge, DIU director said: “The Neutral Vendor Framework for Innovation is a novel and potentially game-changing approach to contracting, which will benefit Defence and the broader national security community. Getting to this stage has required determination and a willingness to challenge convention. Once in place, the Framework will accelerate the acquisition of innovative new capabilities, helping establish and sustain strategic advantage.”

The contract has been awarded under open competition to Constellia – the ‘neutral vendor’ – and is planned to go live in September 2024. The NVFi framework is initially let for two years, with potential to extend by a further two years and is open for use across MOD, National Security organisations and wider UK government.

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Constellia digital NVFi procurement