Description of how these justifications apply
The University intends to directly award a contract to Zoom Communications pursuant to Section 41 and Schedule 5 of the Procurement Act 2023.
Zoom is the University's established collaboration, video conferencing and telephony platform and is deeply integrated into the University's existing digital and physical technology environment. The University's teaching, lecture and meeting rooms contain Zoom-enabled hardware and associated room technology configured to operate with the Zoom platform. This includes cameras, microphones, displays, room control systems and other integrated equipment used to support video conferencing and hybrid teaching.
Zoom also forms an established part of the University's teaching and learning environment. It supports the delivery of hybrid and online teaching, recording and lecture capture, remote participation in teaching sessions, meetings and events, and collaboration between staff, students and external participants. Zoom Phone additionally provides an established telephony service to University users. These services and associated workflows are currently operational and supported by Digital Services.
Moving these services to an alternative platform would not constitute a simple licence replacement. It would require a significant programme of technical assessment, architecture and compatibility testing, room-by-room configuration and potentially hardware replacement. It would also require migration and testing of telephony services, configuration of teaching and lecture-capture workflows, integration testing, user acceptance testing, staff training, documentation and additional service-desk and technical support. The impact would extend across a large number of teaching, meeting and collaboration spaces and users.
An alternative platform would need to demonstrate compatibility with the University's existing room hardware and provide equivalent functionality for hybrid teaching, lecture capture, room-based collaboration and telephony. Undertaking such an assessment and migration within the proposed 12-month contract period would require significant Digital Services resources and would introduce material technical and operational risks, including disruption to teaching and learning, loss or degradation of lecture-capture capability, disruption to telephony and the potential requirement for additional hardware and implementation expenditure.
On this basis, the University considers that Zoom is uniquely able to provide continuity of the existing integrated service within the required timescale without significant technical reconfiguration, migration or disruption. An alternative supplier would require substantial implementation and migration activity which could not reasonably be undertaken within the required timeframe without disproportionate technical, financial and operational risk.