Case Study: Cambridge Management Consulting Helps University of Bristol Complete Multi-Million Modern Network Design

Ensuring that University of Bristol remains the university of choice for students, academics and partners in a globally competitive market 

The University of Bristol is a Russell Group University and a leader in many global league tables, including the QS World University Rankings where in 2023 it ranked 9th in the UK. To strengthen its competitive position, the University is undertaking an ambitious digital transformation strategy. As a foundation of this strategy, the Modern Network will deliver a significant increase in capacity, flexibility, automation, resilience, security and experience for all users. 

Cambridge Management Consulting was selected as the consulting firm to help the University establish and refine the requirements, design the network in collaboration with University of Bristol experts and lead the technical procurement for a Modern Network. 

Cambridge MC’s technical and commercial expertise helped University of Bristol navigate a complex procurement exercise and deliver the first stages of the transformation programme. 

The Challenge

The current University of Bristol campus network requires significant modernisation to support the University’s Digital Strategy. All staff, students and visitors interact with the University's network every day, whether it's connecting a device to Wi-Fi, emailing a colleague, or running a session on the University’s Digital Learning Platform. 

The University of Bristol recognised that improving their global competitiveness requires a step change in the digital experience offered to all users and so it launched its Modern Network programme. 

Key objectives of the Modern Network are to introduce a high-performance network that gives users access to comprehensive teaching and learning resources, as well as specialist equipment, data, and scalable fibre for innovative research. The Modern Network programme also aims to enable students to connect with friends and family, and socialise online from wherever they are on campus, at any time, day or night. The new network will enhance the Wi-Fi coverage and capacity to give users the best digital experience round the clock. 

The University realises that a significant increase in network performance is needed to support data intensive activities, including centralised and de-centralised computing, large scale sensor networks, media rich applications like augmented and virtual reality, data intensive instrumentation and modelling. 

The architecture designed is going to be more flexible, highly scalable, adaptable and evergreen. Security will be improved to cope with the continuously evolving threat landscape and to enable Modern Network users to safely perform their activities from any location in the world, with a consistent, hassle-free experience. 

The Modern Network will deliver a reliable platform with world-class operational capabilities, making the services easy to consume, monitor and manage. 

The Strategy

• Cambridge Management Consulting used its expertise and knowledge to quickly establish a comprehensive set of requirements and to test market appetite to deliver a Modern Network via an RFI. 

• Requirements Management used a structured approach based on a Cambridge MC requirements catalogue. This accelerated the process of engaging University of Bristol stakeholders to validate requirements and helped to shape the University’s procurement process. 

• An efficient and comprehensive stakeholder engagement process also saw the development of multiple personas that were used to explain how the Modern Network would deliver capabilities for students, academics, researchers and professional services colleagues. 

• Cambridge MC, in conjunction with the university, then helped to shape a structured procurement approach. Modern Network capabilities were put into 3 main procurement categories to provide purchasing and transformation flexibility. 

• Cambridge MC led the Procurement technical dialogue. Working in partnership with experts from the University of Bristol, a highly scalable, flexible, secure and resilient target state network was designed. The design is modular and makes use of multiple technical patterns. This provides a repeatable, standardised way for the University to deliver capabilities that can have customised performance service and levels. 

• To assist the Procurement activities, Cambridge MC also created a Model Modern Network. The Model allowed a consistent financial assessment to be made at each stage of the Procurement, including providing a detailed estimate of the transformation milestones and payments. 

• The Cambridge MC team also shaped the Modern Network programme. It was broadly shaped into mobilisation, discovery, design, prove, pilot and deploy phases. Cambridge MC are providing support in the early transformation phase to help the University of Bristol deliver the ambitious programme. 

• The resulting Modern Network will be a high performance, flexible, resilient and secure platform. It will introduce self-service and automation, such as zero touch deployments and autonomous networks for research activities. It will leverage programmatic control and AIOps to improve the digital experience and inclusiveness, sustainability and the global competitiveness of the University. 

• A technical modernisation like this requires a similar shift to a world-class operating model. Cambridge MC supported the service management redesign throughout the procurement phase. Using comprehensive requirements structured around ITIL, the team co-designed the enhanced set of service capabilities and are now helping University of Bristol to introduce these services. 

• The new service management approach will provide full end-to-end visibility of the network, formal SLAs and SLA management and enhanced fault, change, configuration and knowledge management. This will complement the new technical capabilities and provide significant benefits to the University. 

The Team

• Cambridge Management Consulting provided procurement, commercial, technical business analysis and service management expertise. Cambridge MC also provided expertise for the procurement and post-procurement implementation activity. 

• Cambridge MC worked exceptionally well with the University's digital and procurement teams to ensure end-to-end success for the University. 

• Not only did the Cambridge MC team help support, but they also provided extensive knowledge transfer to, the University to minimise the future need for external support, minimise future costs for external consultants and help further develop the in-house ICT and procurement capabilities. 

Outcomes & Results

1. Cambridge Management Consulting's attention to detail ensured there were clear winners of the Procurement lots, with no challenges or disaffected potential suppliers. The winners of the three lots were all world-class organisations with a desire to support the University with its ambition to deliver a first-class service.

2. Cambridge MC have since assisted the University with other aspects of their Digital Strategy and continue to be engaged to help University of Bristol transform.