United Utilities has made a direct AMP8 contract award to Salesforce UK for extension to field service for above ground assets without competition with an estimated value of £8.911 million (inc VAT).

The water company has a requirement to replace its current system for planning, scheduling and otherwise managing field operations for issues arising in relation to United Utilities' portfolio of above ground assets which include treatment works, pumping stations and other assets that perform active processes in the management its clean water operations and waste water operations.

United Utilities has worked with a technology framework partner to identify and document a comprehensive set of requirements for a replacement system and to map the requirements against systems available in the market.

As part of this, consideration was given to alignment to United Utilities' technology strategy, which includes:

• maximise operational efficiencies
• reduce technical complexity and risk
• lowering operating costs by rationalising the technology estate where appropriate.

United Utilities explains that it intends to award the direct contract to Salesforce for an expanded planning and scheduling solution for its above ground assets on the following basis:

The public contract concerns the supply of goods, services or works by the existing supplier, which are intended as an extension to or partial replacement of existing goods, services or works in circumstances where

1.  a change in supplier would result in the contracting authority receiving goods, services or works that are different from or incompatible with the existing goods services or works;
2. the difference or incompatibility would result in disproportionate technical difficulties in operation or maintenance.

United Utilities already has an existing system in place which is powered by the Field Service platform supplied by and licensed from Salesforce for planning scheduling and managing field operations in relation to its below ground assets.

The below ground assets primarily include United Utilities' distribution network of water pipes, waste water sewers and associated infrastructure which are typically situated below ground. The Salesforce system consists of core licences to the Field Service system plus a number of associated supplemental "add on" products that are required to deliver a production service e.g.

• a support service known as "Signature support"
• a sandbox facility for test purposes
• an "Audit Field Trail" for system record keeping purposes.

The system provides an end to end service for managing the promotion of required activities, for work management, scheduling, work execution and mobile management –  the existing Below Ground Use Case.

Following the output of the technology partner review exercise, United Utilities now intends to award a contract to Salesforce for its above ground assets for additional licenses for the Core System plus:

• the provision of equivalent add-on products and services
• the provision and licensing of "Agent Force for Field Service" and "Event Monitoring" as further supplemental add-on products.

United Utilities said the primary reasons for this are to avoid disproportionate technical difficulties arising from a new system being incompatible and / or different from United Utilities' existing systems environment.

According to the utility, expanding its current use of the Core System and associated add-ons will achieve this objective because it: 

• leverages existing skilled resources, and existing support arrangements both with Salesforce and with 3rd party support providers that are equally applicable to the Existing Below Ground Use Case and the Supplemental Above Ground Use Case;
• aligns with existing system architecture and colleague familiarity (both in-house technical experts and workforce operating across both the Existing Below Ground Use Case and the Supplemental Above Ground Use Case)
• avoids as much as possible technical and operational complexity and resulting difficulties which would arise from a requirement for UU to integrate with separate external systems to those currently used for the Existing Below Ground Use Case;
• avoids duplicate supplier management that would otherwise be required if it was to adopt a different system to that currently used for the Existing Below Ground Use Case;

According to United Utilities, by utilising the same supplier for both process and network assets, it ensures a unified supplier model with one accredited partner responsible for configuration, maintenance, consistent security and change control across operations covering both use cases.

The intention is to award a five year contract to Salesforce.

Earliest date the contract will be signed is 1 January 2026 and current estimated start and end contract dates are 1 January 2026 to 28 October 2030.