Service Definition
Mercato ITelligence
Overview
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Mercato ITelligence (“MIT”) is a Benchmarking & Business Intelligence SaaS product
providing users with accurate data about common UK ICT products, indicative trade
pricing and currently levels of stock available in the UK supply chain.
MIT is offered through Probrand Limited by Mercato Solutions Limited (“the
Supplier”) via an annual subscription license to a secure private login accessible
through all standard web browsers.
MIT allows users to search an online master catalogue of over 150,000 current ICT
products offered by 3,500+ OEM vendors.
Users can locate their standard IT purchases in the master catalogue and load
these to their own saved list and instantly receive automated benchmark reporting
on the difference between what they have paid and the current trade guide price.
This gives a valuable insight into the likely margins their supplier is charging. This
information informs (and can be adopted as Standing Orders into) Customers’
buying procedures and can empower users to monitor “cost plus” agreements and
frameworks with users existing IT suppliers
User can set automated alerts (via email notifications) about market trade price
and stock availability movements which are cached at least daily
MIT contains a Request For Quotation (“RFQ”) compilation tool which allows users
to prepare RFQs and send the same RFQ to their managed list of their nominated
suppliers by email simultaneously. They can chose to reveal (and so show that they
know) or withheld the MIT disclosed guide trade price for the products in the RFQ
The product descriptions are supported by vendor-approved specification and
technical data sheets and images and can be used by IT professionals for verified
system configuration and building, budgeting and in order to select system
components which are available for purchase in the supply chain.
Supplier and Probrand have been accredited as demonstrating “excellence in
procurement policies and procedures” by The Chartered Institute for Purchasing
and Supply. Probrand won in 2011 a Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation in
relation to its e-procurement tools which were developed for it by Supplier and are
extensively replicated within MIT. Probrand’s use of Supplier’s e-procurement BI
technology has been accredited by the Institute for Chartered Accountants in
England & Wales as a “Best Practice, Best Value” e-procurement solution
Information assurance, backup/restore and DR
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Probrand and Supplier operate jointly from 2 locations; namely, a HQ in
Birmingham and a second office in Manchester.
MIT is hosted on owned servers held and maintained on these premises.
The IT data storage systems in Birmingham are co-located in Manchester for
Disaster Recovery purposes.
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Should a disaster occur in Birmingham or Manchester, the DR system in the other
location will provide Customers with use of a fully restored system in less than 1
hour.
Boarding
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User and Customer boarding follows this procedure:
o The Customer is verified and a credit account opened
o The identities of the Customer’s relevant staff (“users”) are provided and
secure individual logins are established and notified to each individual by
email
o On first logging on, users are required to change their password. This is
mandated and cannot be avoided
Pricing
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A standard annual single user subscription license costs £5,750 plus VAT.
Multi-user licenses are priced individually on the basis of the number of proposed
users, the degree of functionality each user is expected to utilise and the scale of
the Customer’s ICT purchasing budget and so an assessment of the likely value MIT
will deliver to that Customer. Multi-user licenses currently vary in annual charge
from £7,000 to £25,000 plus VAT. Pricing is made available on request.
Service levels & management
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The Customer’s relationship with Supplier is managed by a named Customer Service
Manager. Any issues of underperformance, system unavailability or otherwise can
be escalated under a written procedure: first of all, to the MIT Sales Manager and
then to a Director of Supplier
MIT guarantees a 97.5% working hours service availability and currently (1/1/1030/11/11) has operated to 99.14%
Service constraints
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All service maintenance windows are managed to be outside standard UK office
hours (8.30am to 5.30 pm Monday to Friday excluding statutory public holidays).
The service is available 24/7, except for during such maintenance windows
Other than in relation to the creation of saved product lists, RFQ supplier lists and
contact methodologies and the individual setting of alerts, there is no
customisation required or permitted.
Training
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There are detailed user guides and materials available for all users (attached
separately)
Individual user telephone or web-ex, one-2-one training (to a reasonable number of
users and on reasonable notice) can also be provided at no charge
Ordering & invoice processing
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An MIT annual license can be ordered simply by email (to
al.nagar@mercatosolutions.co.uk) or by telephone (to 0845 111 4006).
The Customer must provide a Purchase Order number and the license with then be
invoiced. Payment terms are 30 days from the date of invoice.
MIT will be activated for the Customer and the nominated user logins will be sent
immediately following invoicing.
Termination terms
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The Customer has no right to terminate other than due to material breach of the
license by Supplier (e.g. consistent failure to maintain the contractual service
availability
Supplier may terminate the license if it becomes unable to supply the data due to
any impediment placed on it by the suppliers of the data to it.
In either event, the Customer’s compensation rights are for a maximum of the
aggregate amount paid by the Customer for the service within the 12 month period
prior to termination or material breach.
Service migration
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Customer’s data within the system (saved product lists, supplier lists etc) can be
exported via.csv formats at any point while they are registered with the portal.
The service functionality cannot be migrated.
Consumer responsibilities
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The sole Customer responsibility is to keep their logins secure and operate within
their own internal and agreed product ordering procedures
Consumers are not authorised to disclose information, data or any Business
Intelligence they learn through access to MIT to anybody who is not employed or
formally engaged by their organisation
Technical requirements
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Web browser access is the only technical requirement
Trial
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No free trial is offered
As an alternative, the Supplier will prepare on reasonable notice a free basket
analysis using MIT reporting tools of up to 50 standard ICT products that the
Customer has purchased within the 6 months prior to the analysis being prepared.