We are excited to announce that Fujitsu are one of the sponsors at the National Social Value Conference 2022. Gary Young, Business Operations Director for UK Public Sector at Fujitsu, has taken a lead on developing Fujitsu’s social value response and strategy, and is a member of the National Social Value Taskforce. Here he shares his knowledge and Fujitsu’s experience in Social Value execution.
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“Unprecedented”- a term that has become all too familiar to us since the beginning of 2020. In the past couple of years, we’ve weathered “unprecedented” global crises, “unprecedented” political events, “unprecedented” personal experiences. The impact of these events has been widespread; presenting new and unfamiliar challenges to individuals, families and communities throughout the UK. This adversity does offer us all a unique opportunity to collaborate in building a fairer and more sustainable society. From organisations to individuals, we all have a role to play.
Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures. The release of PPN 06/20 in September 2020 is just that. The Cabinet Office’s decision to mandate a minimum weighting of 10% to social value in the evaluation of bids has altered the IT Services competitive landscape. From a Fujitsu perspective, Social Value is part of our DNA as an organisation. Our purpose is to “Create a sustainable world by resolving social issues through digital innovation.” In 2030, we imagine a world in which people, regions, companies, things, and data are connected to generate innovation based on delivering value to people and resolving societal issues in order to create a green future and a sustainable society that leaves no one behind.
While there is much to be speculated about, it’s very difficult to predict where social value will be in 10 years’ time. While environmental and economic objectives will no doubt persist, no one can say for certain what the next “unprecedented” event might be which will recalibrate our national and organisational priorities. This being said, we can say with some confidence that:
▪ Social Value is here to stay. As organisations increase their focus on the UN Sustainable Development Goals it will become a business imperative for everyone; increasingly engrained within our BAU operations and mindset.
▪ Those organisations who place it at the core of who they are, will be best placed to succeed.
▪ As ever, understanding customers, the things that are most important to them, and taking steps to support the delivery of their aims is key to remaining relevant. Relevance from a social value perspective is essential to building lasting partnerships.
Early as it is in the life of this policy, we have perceived several challenges which we will need to address as a collective to maximise the positive social impact it will surely bring. As social value continues to mature, every organisation, private and public alike, should consider how they develop social value strategies where everything they do contributes to achieving their own social value priorities and purpose. These social value strategies should not only consider individual initiatives, but also how services are designed and delivered, in order to ensure “best social value for money”. While social value is currently being considered from an individual project basis, we believe that more value can be gained if social value is considered within the context of a long-term ambition or target. Furthermore, we need to ensure that overarching Government Social Value ambition and targets are translated into departmental and organisational strategies with greater cohesion and consistency in how social value is applied and measured across Government. As we all embark on this journey, we have an opportunity to learn from one another to leverage our combined insight and, ultimately, maximise the social value we deliver as an ecosystem.
As we seek to support our customers’ ambitions, the increased concentration on Social Value has already fundamentally changed the shape of our engagement models, conversations with customers and end-to-end delivery models. When building our social value approach, we’ve explored new and innovative measures to enhance the positive impact of the services we offer while increasingly considering:
- Government Policy: Align social value strategy to UK Government ambition and priorities; enabling the UK’s long-term digital ambitions while providing equal opportunity to everyone, everywhere in the UK.
- Our customer’s sustainability plans: Collaborate with customers to tailor our Social Value proposition to their organisational priorities, both near and long term. We are already enabling our customers to resolve social issues by leveraging innovation and capitalising on emerging technologies e.g. Digital Twin, Quantum-Inspired technology, AI, data and analytics.
- Levelling Up: Bringing economic value and skills to the UK through onshore delivery; offering employment opportunities to all regions. Focus on local delivery, employment and investment to “level up” and grow the UK economy.
- Diversification of the Supply chain: Harnessing SME and VCSE capabilities to drive innovation and growth. Strengthen our SME and VCSE relationships; actively bringing opportunities to our partners and sharing experience and knowledge to enable their continued growth.
At Fujitsu we have taken positive steps to deliver tangible and relevant social benefits to our wide and growing portfolio of customers, along with the communities in which they operate. We are relishing the opportunity to take unprecedented leaps in the delivery of social impact as the IT services market leader. Over the coming months and years, our priority will be to collaborate with our customers and partners to create strategies, build solutions and deliver services that will maximise combined social value contribution.
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Gary will join the panel for ‘No place left behind’, an assessment of the government’s levelling up paper, on day one of the National Social Value Conference 2022. Limited tickets are available, so book yours today and join us there.
