Request for information / An invitation to a market discussion: CRM system, set-up, migration from current systems and support functions for Helsinki Partners

This request for information has been targeted to system and service providers which can offer sales and marketing company CRM system set-up from start to finish, migration from current CRM systems and support functions.

Helsinki’s international competitiveness and appeal will be consolidated under one sales and marketing company owned by the city, which would work towards the objectives set forth in the City Strategy. This goal is achieved by combining the operations of Helsinki Business Hub, Helsinki Marketing and Helsinki Abroad in a new company, Helsinki Partners. The objective is to boost Helsinki’s international reputation and to attract even more foreign visitors, businesses, investments and expertise to Finland’s capital. Helsinki Partner’s operating model is based on the city’s strong and clear strategic themes and goals focused on international appeal and economic development, to build Helsinki’s brand and recognition among foreign target groups through targeted international marketing and communications and drawing in international B2B events and conferences as well as visitors. In addition to this, the company will participate in the development and coordination of the relevant networks and the overall coordination of service paths for foreign businesses. The objective is to ensure that the new company, which operates in an agile, flexible and customer-oriented manner, can react to changes in the operating environment more efficiently. The company would also facilitate closer collaboration domestically and abroad. To be able to fulfil the city’s expectations and set goals, Helsinki Partner’s will need a new modern CRM to cater for the existing needs of all three companies as well as all the future processes that would be formed as the Helsinki Partners will start to officially operate in autumn. Helsinki Marketing and Helsinki Business Hub have together, with an external partner, completed a requirement analysis of our needs and functions that currently use or would benefit from using a CRM. Currently custom made Podio and Aspicore CRM systems are in use. In these systems there is historic data that looks back decades and is vital for the daily operations. It was determined that the core functionalities should be made of contacts and processes. Also, there are numerous unsupported processes that are relying on other ways of process tracking and data recording. Contacts can be connected to multiple accounts and organisation in different roles. The involvement of a contact should also be easily visible. Other requirements for the CRM system should be email marketing, online engagement including social media, surveys, reporting, vendor management, event management, shared inbox, contract making, collaboration platform and documents management. But not all requirements are equally essential and could be executed through external systems. This request for information has been targeted to system and service providers which can offer sales and marketing company CRM system set-up from start to finish, migration from current CRM systems and support functions. Questions and market discussion Before opening the call for tenders, Helsinki Marketing wants to hear potential system and service providers in an open market discussion. The market discussion is not a part of the call for tenders' process. Helsinki Partners will be using the information that was gathered during the market discussion for the preparation of the call for tenders. The starting time for the possible call for tenders, its scope and the procurement procedures will be decided after the market discussion. The preliminary plan is to have an open process and the procurement notice will be published in early autumn of 2021. Helsinki Marketing will be conducting this market discussion before the new company Helsinki Partners starts officially its operations. We are requesting all interested parties to send participation request to the following email address: janina.riutta@hel.fi by Friday 28.5.2021 (12 PM). Mark the email subject as “Market Discussion Participation”. After this you will receive a list of questions from the same email address. Please return the filled-out form to the same email address (janina.riutta@hel.fi) by Friday 28.5.2021 (12 PM). After receiving the answers, we might conduct more detailed discussions with selected providers and request additional information. We will notify separate if we would like to schedule these discussions. Helsinki Marketing will not commit to detailed discussion with all providers which have sent their responses. Participation on the request for information or the market discussion will not be compensated in any way for the provider. This notification is not preliminary notice, tendering request, procurement notice or an invitation to a negotiated procedure. The publishing of this notification does not start the call for tenders. Not participating in the request for information, will not prohibit the provider’s possibility to participate in the call for tenders. Nor does the participation for the request for information or the follow up market discussions, affect the provider’s positioning in the actual call for tenders. This notification is an invitation to a market discussion before the start of the actual procurement procedure.