cover
TO: Mayor Richard C. Irvin
FROM: Michael R Pegues, Chief Information Officer
Jeff Anderson, Deputy Chief Information Officer
Mariuz Gil, Director, Infrastructure & Operations
DATE: December 7, 2022
SUBJECT:
A Resolution to award a contract for a three-year Managed Phone Service Partnership to Sentinel, of Downers Grove, for $307,102.96.
PURPOSE:
The City IT Department currently manages nearly 1,000 land-line telephony devices & lines for city staff. The city telephone network has become quite complex and is not running on the current technologies which leads to inefficiencies for staff and additional costs. This Managed Phone Service Partnership (MPSP) will reduce infrastructure and equipment costs while allowing employees to stay connected with both internal and external stakeholders and across any device and any location they utilize the service.
BACKGROUND:
Following the City's move to a managed service in other areas (Managed Security Services, Managed Infrastructure), the City sought to partner with an expert provider that could provide support, maintenance and eventually replacement and management of hardware and/or other service contracts.
The current Cisco-based system is not current and is therefore unable to utilize more cost-effective and efficient voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) solutions and does not integrate with city staff computing devices (laptop/pc, cell phones). The City does utilize VOIP protocols for internal calls, but all inbound and outbound calls still traverse the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN).
In addition to being less costly, full VOIP solutions allow for connecting with an employee regardless of whether they are on a cell phone, on their computer or at their desk.
DISCUSSION:
The city engaged Marketplace.city to find a MSPS.
Process Overview:
-- Marketplace.city created Market Landscape with 8 Companies
-- Project team reviewed Market Landscape, drafted scope and opportunity document with stakeholders
-- Publicly posted and distributed the Opportunity for vendors to complete to be included in the reporting and selection process (22-07)
-- Opened 1/18/22 and closed 2/2/22
-- 14 companies responded by Deadline
-- Four submissions were for the RingCentral product.
-- Mindsight was brought forward from the list of those four due to previous successful project history with Mindsight.
-- Based upon the quality of responses, six vendors were chosen for demonstrations.
-- Those disqualified at this stage did not propose a method to systematically upgrade and migrate phone numbers from the current Cisco environment to a VOIP solution; instead, they proposed a more costly and immediate full-replacement with a competing VOIP solution.
-- This qualified list contained 6 vendors. [AIS Labs, AT&T, Mindsight, Sentinel, SKC, Trifecta]
-- Demonstrations with those six began on Feb 21.
-- After these demonstrations, the project team invited 3 finalists to submit a response to the RFP [AT&T, Mindsight, and Sentinel]
Drafted the Request for Proposal (RFP) with IT Stakeholders
-- Sent the RFP to the 3 finalists
-- Opened 3/28/22 and closed 4/11/22
-- All 3 vendors responded
The project team scored the final proposals and selected the recommended vendor, Sentinel. This was based primarily on Sentinel's vendor agnostic proposal, significant expertise in performing large-scale Cisco migrations, past performance supporting City IT staff and wide experience managing phone systems for their clients.
Staff believes Sentinel’s approach to maintain the current Cisco system while providing a deliberate, planned upgrade path to a full VOIP platform is the most efficient and cost-effective of all solutions provided to the City.
IMPACT STATEMENT:
If this resolution is not approved, costs for operating the existing phone system will continue to increase and efficiencies will not be acquired by city staff.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Request the proposed resolution be adopted.
cc: Infrastructure and Technology Committee
CITY OF AURORA, ILLINOIS
RESOLUTION NO. _________
DATE OF PASSAGE ________________
title
A Resolution to award a contract for a three-year Managed Phone Service Partnership to Sentinel, of Downers Grove, for $307,102.96.
body
WHEREAS, the City of Aurora has a population of more than 25,000 persons and is, therefore, a home rule unit under subsection (a) of Section 6 of Article VII of the Illinois Constitution of 1970; and
WHEREAS, subject to said Section, a home rule unit may exercise any power and perform any function pertaining to its government and affairs for the protection of the public health, safety, morals, and welfare; and
WHEREAS, as part of its Technology Strategic Plan, the City of Aurora is identifying and replacing its outdated and underperforming systems; and
WHEREAS, the City's IT staff currently manages nearly land-line 1,000 telephony devices; and
WHEREAS, the City's costs will continue to increase if the inefficient phone network is upgraded and managed properly; and
WHEREAS, the City worked with Marketplace.city to formally search for solutions in January 2022 (22-07); and
WHEREAS, funding has been budgeted in the 2023 budget in account 101-1280-418.32-80.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Aurora, Illinois, as follows: award a contract for a three-year Managed Phone Service Partnership to Sentinel, of Downers Grove, for $307,102.96.