Public procurement organisation YPO has signed Amazon to develop a Digital Marketplace for products used in a range of services.
It has awarded the digital retail giant a five-year contract valued at £400-600 million, without a full tender process after Amazon provided the only compliant expression of interest to a public information notice.
It said it believes the company’s wide range of business-to-business offerings, totalling more than 1 million products, made it the only viable contractor.
YPO, a company owned by a consortium of 13 local authorities and originating from Yorkshire, provides about 100 frameworks and a procurement channel for about 30,000 products, including IT equipment along with staples including electricity, food and insurance. It provides the service for councils, schools, charities, emergency services and commercial providers of public services such as nurseries and care homes.
Expansion
Joel Pearce, head of research and partnerships at public procurement data service Tussell, said the contract marks an expansion of Amazon’s presence in the public sector market, providing a platform for authorities for a range of products.
“Whilst Amazon Web Services (AWS) regularly wins government work, this is the first contract since January 2012 awarded to the firm’s retail division,” he said.
AWS has become a feature on the G-Cloud and attracted a number of public sector customers, including the Home Office, to its cloud data storage services.
