National government departments return to the eTender Portal this week, as the ICT industry prepares for the year-end slow down.
While it is not common that ITWeb covers a lower-value request for quotations, an invitation from the Department of Tourism for the development of a tourism sector digital transformation strategy is worth taking a closer look at for its wide-reaching potential.
In its documentation, the department notes the sector is a significant contributor to the national economy, but is currently underleveraged in terms of digital innovation and technology integration.
“The advent of digital technology presents a transformative opportunity to elevate the operational efficiency, customer experience and global competitiveness of our tourism industry. Recognising this potential, the Department of Tourism proposes to develop a robust tourism sector digital transformation strategy,” it says.
The national tourism sector strategy highlights the impact of ongoing digital change on the global tourism industry and emphasises a shift away from traditional tourism and service offerings, toward a comprehensive, high-quality visitor experience with constant information availability.
The department explains: “The digital transformation for tourism provides numerous prospects for stimulating innovation for new digitally-enhanced business models, gaining access to markets, improving efficiencies and upgrading services, all of which contribute to the sector’s success.”
However, these prospects also create an unequal playing field, which is worsened by a rising disparity between tech-driven and globally connected tourism enterprises and traditional micro and small business, which are frequently defined by low-tech business practices.
“In particular, digital transformation among tourism [SMMEs] has been slow in South Africa due to restrictions such as lack of infrastructure, networks, technology and corresponding skills to accelerate digital transition.”
The department is now looking to appoint a suitable and qualified service provider to develop a tourism sector digital transformation strategy, which will act as a roadmap, giving a decision-making framework for the identification of emerging trends, challenges and opportunities, prioritising sector digital transformation targets, identifying key stakeholders to establish collaborations and allocating resources to achieve desired results.
Other tenders that make this week’s top 10:
- The South African Social Security Agency invites prospective bidders to submit proposals for the implementation of a digital pen solution and e-form interface as an offline solution for field service support. A digital pen technology that interfaces with a paperless application will enable the seamless ingestion, authentication and non-repudiation of manual applications and medical forms, it says.
The Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport is advertising for the design, implementation and roll-out of a cloud-based electronic signatures solution (incorporating advanced electronic signatures) for all the departments of the Western Cape Government. The department notes that as the custodian for records management, it has been tasked with the implementation and adoption of electronic content management, which must improve the efficiency of access to information, improve the safeguarding of institutional knowledge and ensure compliance to relevant document and records management acts and prescripts.
The province’s Department of Health, meanwhile, is inviting bids for the supply, delivery, installation and certification of a Globalsix Cat6a U/FTP structured cabling system with PoE++ support, vertical backbone fibre-optic cabling system and network cabinets in floor distribution rooms of Groote Schuur Hospital. Proposed solutions must adhere to relevant standards, ensuring high-performance networking, durability and long-term reliability.
The Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries wishes to appoint a service provider to re-design, re-develop and maintain (through bug fixing and enhancements) the departmental intranet, under SITA transversal contract 1183. The department notes its current intranet solution has been overtaken by technological advancement in the ICT space, which requires that it take advantage of these new developments as part of its effort to improve internal communication. The current intranet also does not spark excitement and is an under-utilised tool for sharing information with staff and building staff cohesion, it says.
The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy is calling for a service provider to supply it with backup and disaster recovery services for user data and core applications. Its current backup hardware infrastructure is out of warranty and has reached the end of its life, making spares or replacement parts unavailable and limiting vendor support.
Transnet is advertising for the provision of co-location data centre and hosting services. The master services agreement for IT data services is a transversal contract that services all Transnet operating divisions, including the Transnet Corporate Centre. The company notes the current primary data centre contract came to an end on 30 November. Accordingly, upon disengagement from the current incumbent, Transnet will lose the ability to host workloads at the data centre.
The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) invites proposals for the provision, configuration, installation and maintenance of a court recording and audio-visual solution (CRAVS) for courts and correctional centres. The implementation of a new and innovative CRAVS will incorporate, streamline and secure any virtual or physical court appearance, proceedings testimony and evidence, and court recordings, the agency says.
SITA also wishes to procure Cisco WAN equipment for the South African Police Services North West. The specifications include 213 four-port 1GE routers and small form-factor pluggable transceivers, as well as hardware and support. Delivery will need to take place to 10 locations across the province.
Finally, the agency wishes to extend the VMware Hypervisor licence subscription for the private on-premises cloud foundation infrastructure (CFI) within the Government Private Cloud Ecosystem phase 6b in line with the VMware CSP. The challenge with the current on-premises variants is they have limits for specific OS flavours, therefore a need to deploy the VMware Virtualisation environment to accommodate other OS flavours and subsequent applications that run on these OS.
New tenders
South African Social Security Agency
SASSA invites prospective bidders to submit proposals for the implementation of a digital pen solution and e-form interface for field service support (offline solution) for three years.
Tender no: SASSA:23-24-ICT-HO
Information: Mogafe Mphahlele, Tel: 012 400 2412, E-mail: digitalPen@sassa.gov.za
Closing date: 17 January 2025
Tags: Software, hardware, digital, digital pen
Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport, Western Cape
The provincial department is advertising for the design, implementation and roll-out of a cloud-based electronic signatures solution (incorporating advanced electronic signatures) for all the departments of the Western Cape Government.
Compulsory briefing: 9 December – Microsoft Teams, Link
Tender no: CAS 01/2024-2025
Information: Zolisa Nomandla, Tel: 021 483 9835, E-mail: Zolisa.Nomandla@westerncape.gov.za
Closing date: 16 January 2025
Tags: Software, electronic signature, cloud computing
Department of Health, Western Cape
Bids are invited for the supply, delivery, installation and certification of a Globalsix Cat6a U/FTP structured cabling system with PoE++ support, vertical backbone fibre-optic cabling system and network cabinets in floor distribution rooms of Groote Schuur Hospital.
Compulsory briefing: 20 January
Tender no: GSH9/2024
Information: Ettiene Roman, Tel: 021 404 2345, E-mail: Ettiene.Roman@westerncape.gov.za
Closing date: 31 January 2025
Tags: Hardware, networking, cabling, fibre-optics
Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries
The national department wishes to appoint a service provider to re-design, re-develop and maintain (through bug fixing and enhancements) the departmental intranet for 24 months, under SITA transversal contract 1183.
Compulsory briefing: 10 December – Microsoft Teams, Link
Tender no: DFFE SITA005 (24/25)
Information: SCM Official, Tel: 012 399 9892, E-mail: Tenders@dffe.gov.za
Closing date: 20 January 2025
Tags: Software, software development, intranet, web development, services, support and maintenance
Department of Mineral Resources and Energy
The national department is calling for a service provider to supply it with backup and disaster recovery services for user data and core applications for 36 months.
Compulsory briefing: 3 December – Microsoft Teams, Meeting ID: 354 727 889 15, Passcode: UZ2dQ9fc
Tender no: DMRE/020/2024/25
Information: Lucia Keketso Nkhethoa, Tel: 012 406 7702, E-mail: Lucia.Nkhethoa@dmre.gov.za
Closing date: 11 December 2024
Tags: Software, hardware, security, backup, disaster recovery, data
Department of Tourism
Proposals are requested for the development of the tourism sector’s digital transformation.
Tender no: IM03012024
Information: Isaac Mashaba, Tel: 012 444 6243, E-mail: imashaba@tourism.gov.za
Closing date: 6 December 2024
Tags: Services, professional services, consulting, digital transformation
Transnet
The state-owned entity is advertising for the provision of data centre and hosting services (co-location) for five years.
Tender no: TCC/2024/09/0001/77866/RFP
Information: Reetsang Modise, Tel: 011 308 4905, E-mail: Reetsang.Modise@transnet.net
Closing date: 9 December 2024
Tags: Services, hosting, data centre
State Information Technology Agency
Proposals are invited for the provision, configuration, installation and maintenance of a court recording and audio-visual solution for courts and correctional centres for five years.
Compulsory briefing: 10 December – Microsoft Teams
Tender no: RFB 3045/2024
Information: Bongeka Malinga, Tel: 012 482 3235, E-mail: Bongeka.Malinga@wsita.co.za
Closing date: 31 January 2025
Tags: Software, hardware, court recording, audio-visual
SITA also wishes to procure Cisco WAN equipment for the South African Police Services North West.
Tender no: RFB 3040-2024
Information: Mantsie Mabiletsa, Tel: 012 482 2655, E-mail: mantsie.malebatsa@sita.co.za
Closing date: 13 December 2024
Tags: Hardware, networking
Finally, the agency wishes to extend the VMWare Hypervisor licence subscription for the private on-premises CFI within the GPCE phase 6b in line with the VMware CSP.
Non-compulsory briefing: 3 December – Microsoft Teams
Tender no: RFB 3044-2024
Information: Konwaba Mbolekwa, Tel: 012 482 2543, E-mail: konwaba.mbolekwa@sita.co.za
Closing date: 10 January 2025
Tags: Software, hardware, licensing, cloud computing
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