DEADLINE: 13TH APRIL, 2023
AFRICAN REINSURANCE CORPORATION (AFRICA RE)
INVITATION TO TENDER FOR THE SELECTION OF VENDOR FOR THE DELIVERY & IMPLEMENTATION OF ARUBA NETWORK SOLUTION AT AFRICA RE HEAD OFFICE IN LAGOS
(1) BACKGROUND
The African Reinsurance Corporation (Africa Re) is the leading pan-African reinsurance company and the largest reinsurer in Africa in terms of net reinsurance written premiums. The mission of Africa Re is to foster the development of the insurance and reinsurance industry in Africa; to promote the growth of national, regional, and sub-regional underwriting and retention capacities and to support the African economic development. With headquarters in Lagos (Nigeria), Africa Re operates through six (6) Regional Offices across Africa: Casablanca (Morocco), Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire), Nairobi (Kenya), Lagos (Nigeria), Cairo (Egypt) and Ebene (Mauritius). Africa Re equally has one (1) Local Office in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), one Underwriting Representative Office in Kampala, Uganda and three (3) Subsidiaries (Africa Re South Africa Limited in Johannesburg (South Africa), Africa Retakaful in Cairo (Egypt) and Africa Re Underwriting Agency Limited in Dubai (The United Arab Emirates).
Africa Re is seeking proposals from firms qualified and experienced in providing and implementing enterprise networks upgrade to replace existing active network components with Aruba network equipment at the Headquarters’ office building in Lagos, Nigeria.
(2) OBJECTIVES
A new high-speed, low-latency and full-communication stack is required to address existing aging network infrastructure bottlenecks and to support the technology demands of today’s workforce and modern wired and wireless converged networks.
For this purpose and to give a competitive edge to its business, Africa Re intends to upgrade the Active wired and wireless network infrastructure in her Head office at Plot 1679, Karimu Kotun Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. This RFP provides the bill of materials (BOM) required for the replacement of the aging network equipment on six of the floors of the building.
The current network infrastructure in the building consists of Cisco aggregation switches, access switches, wireless controller (deployed in the datacenter) and Wireless Access Points (APs) deployed on six floors in the building. The main key success factor of this project is to upgrade the active network components with a view to providing an expanded network coverage, security, and performance.
(3) DELIVERABLES
The contractor will be required to provide comprehensive services to complete the entire process of the network upgrades at the abovementioned site. These services will include planning, equipment acquisition, staging, scheduling, reporting, documentation updates, communication and coordination with other parties involved in the overall project. The selected contractors must be willing to work in a cooperative manner with Africa Re staff and other parties working on behalf of Africa Re.
The scope of this project will include the purchase, configuration, and installation of Aruba active network equipment (Switches, AP’s and controllers). The contractor will be responsible for removing existing equipment, installing new equipment, making all necessary interconnections, and then verifying that the network is fully functional. There are existing switches and WLAN equipment in the building that will be removed as part of this project. The new switches and WLAN equipment will be installed as replacements and additional AP’s will be installed in new locations in the building.
Africa Re will provide detailed instructions for network design, site survey templates, configuration templates, installation procedures, documentation procedures, and coordinate scheduling in the building. The contractor will be expected to provide experienced staff with adequate expertise in project management and networking technologies to comply with the implementation standards required at Africa Re.
The following are the expected minimum configurations:
- Configuration and partitioning the local area network into virtual LAN (VLANS)
- Configure redundant switches to run the DHCP protocol to allocate network addresses to network assets
- Configuration of Span Ports on switches as required
- Activation of security features on the switches (the anti-spoofing, anti-flooding feature etc.)
(4) CAPABILITIES REQUIREMENTS FOR QUALIFICATION OF PROSPECTIVE CONTRACTORS
The requirements listed below must be met by the prospective vendors. In their response, the vendor must specifically address each bulleted item below. Absence of a specific response will be interpreted as a negative response.
(1) Consideration will be given to the partner certification level that the bidder holds with the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) of the product that is being considered. The bidder should clearly include this accredited partnership certification in the bid response.
(2) There will be a six-month post installation Defect Liability Period (DLP). The contractor must have staff available to return to the site for any problem resolution within the period at no cost to Africa Re.
(3) Contractor must provide three (3) references for projects of a similar scale and scope carried out within the last six years. Financial services environments are the preferred references.
(4) The contractor must submit a detailed manpower resource plan to demonstrate that adequate resources are committed to this project.
(5) The contractor must agree to add additional manpower to the project if it falls behind schedule.
(6) Contractor must provide a dedicated Project Manager to oversee all the contractor’s activities, and to serve as the single point of contact to Africa Re personnel.
(7) The contractor must provide documentation as specified by the Africa Re Project Manager. This will include updating existing documentation provided by Africa Re.
(8) The contractor should submit the resume of the Project Manager and networking professionals proposed for this project.
(9) Contractor must remove old equipment, inventory all old equipment, cables, etc. and relocate this equipment to an Africa Re storage facility as instructed by Africa Re
(10) Contractor will be responsible for checking accuracy of parts required as part of the preliminary site visits and must notify Africa Re project manager of any discrepancies.
(11) All equipment ordered must be newly supplied from the manufacturer.
(12) The contractor will be required to expedite deliveries (at no cost to Africa Re) if necessary, to maintain the work schedule.
(13) Any additional components and installations required will be done at the same unit costs as the original quote with no additional charges for change order processing.
(14) The Contractor must provide verification that the Aruba maintenance contract is in effect and all products are under coverage.
(5) EVALUATION PROCESSES AND SELECTION CRITERIA
Responses to this RFP will be evaluated and scored based on the following criteria:
- Experience of the service provider in implementing networking solutions
- Technical approach and methodology
- Organization and staffing
- Proposed Cost
- Financial Information
- Similar projects delivered previously
- Quality, clarity, and presentation of proposal
(6) PRESENTATION OF TENDER
To facilitate the analysis of responses to this RFP, the responding vendors are required to prepare their proposals in accordance with the instructions outlined in this section. The firms/vendors whose proposals deviate from these instructions would be considered nonresponsive and may be disqualified at the discretion of Africa Re.
Proposals should be clear and comprehensive. It should provide a straightforward, concise description of the vendor’s capabilities to meet the requirements of the RFP. Emphasis should be laid on accuracy, completeness, and clarity of content. All parts, pages, figures, and tables should be numbered and clearly labeled. The proposal should be organized into the following major sections:
(6.1) Section Title
1.0 Executive summary
2.0 Company Experience / Expertise
3.0 Technical approach and methodology
4.0 Organization and staffing
5.0 Cost quotations
6.0 Financial information
7.0 Resumes of key staff to be deployed
(6.2) Executive summary
This part of the response to the RFP should be limited to a brief narrative highlighting the vendor’s proposal. The summary should contain as little technical details as possible and should be oriented towards non-technical personnel. The Executive summary should not include cost quotations.
(6.3) Experience of the Vendor
The vendor must provide the following information about their company so that Africa Re can evaluate their stability and ability to support the commitments set forth in response to the RFP. Africa Re may require the vendor to provide additional documentation to support and/or clarify requested information.
[Using the format below, provide information on each relevant assignment for which your organization, and each associate for this assignment, was legally contracted either individually, as a corporate entity or, as one of the major companies within an association, for carrying out projects similar to the ones requested under the Terms of Reference included in this document. The Proposal must demonstrate that the Vendor has a proven track record of successful experience in providing services similar in substance, complexity, value, duration, and volume of services sought in this procurement.]
Maximum 20 pages
Assignment name: Approximate value of the contract (in currency US$): Country:Location within country: Duration of assignment (months): Name of client: Total no of staff-months of the assignment: Address: Approximate value of the services provided by your firm under the contract (in currency US$): Start date (month/year): Completion date (month/year): No of professional staff-months provided by associated vendors: Name of associated consultants, if any: Name of Proposed senior professional staff of your firm involved and functions performed: Narrative description of review engagement: Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment: Description of challenges encountered, and the strategy used to address and successfully close the project including time and resources:
Authorized Signatory:
Name of Vendor:
(6.4) Approach and Methodology
In this chapter, you should explain your understanding of the objectives of the assignment, approach to the services, methodology for carrying out the activities and obtaining the expected output and the degree of details of such output. You should highlight the problems being addressed and their importance and explain the technical approach you would adopt to address them. You should also explain the methodologies you propose to adopt and highlight the compatibility of those methodologies with the proposed approach.
(6.5) Organization and Staffing
In this chapter, you should propose the structure and composition of your team. You should list the main disciplines of the assignment, the key expert responsible, and proposed technical and functional staff.
(6.6) Cost Quotations
Your proposal should include supply and installation of items in the Bill of Material in Appendix A:
(6.7) Financial Information
The vendor’s financial information should be included in this section. Financial information must include audited financial information for the past three years if applicable.
(6.8) Resumes
The vendor must make every effort to select staff for the assignment based on Africa Re’s needs. Applicable resumes should be included in this section.
(7) COMPANY AND OTHER GENERAL REQUIREMENTS
No. Requirement Vendor Response 7.1 Company Information Requirements a) How long has company been in business? b) How long has the company been providing the proposed Network solution? c) State number of employees in the company. d) State total number of employees dedicated to this assignment.
(8) CLARIFICATION AND AMENDMENT OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL
The vendor may request for clarification only up to 3 days before proposal submission date. Any request for clarification must be sent in writing by letter or email to the Africa Re’s address indicated below. Africa Re will respond by letter or email to such requests and will send written copies of the response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of the inquiry) to all firms which intend to submit proposals. Contact for clarification: icttender@africa-re.com
(9) PROPOSAL SUBMISSION
The Proposals should be submitted through the email address tender@africa-re.com not later than April 13, 2023, and the subject of the email should read “IMPLEMENTATION OF ARUBA NETWORK SOLUTION AT AFRICA RE HEAD OFFICE IN LAGOS”. Any proposal received by Africa Re after the submission deadline shall be rejected.
(10) AFRICA RE RIGHTS RESERVED
AFRICA RE reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to take actions deemed in AFRICA RE’s best interest that may include any one or more of the following without thereby incurring any liability to the affected bidder(s) of any obligation to inform the affected bidder(s)
- Accept or Reject any or all proposals in whole or in part, at any time prior to award of Contract
- Waive any minor irregularities or informalities in a proposal, or vary any timetable or schedule
- Suspend or modify the RFP process or negotiate the details of a proposal prior to contracting
(11) OWNERSHIP AND RETURN OF PROPOSAL
All materials submitted in response to this RFP shall become the property of AFRICA RE and shall not be returned to the respondent.
For: African Reinsurance Corporation
Dr. Corneille KAREKEZI
Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer
