The public sector has always been at a disadvantage when it comes to identifying ways of using information & communications technology to support an organisation’s objectives.  In-house competency & capacity has often been limited; trying to fill the gap by using external private-sector consultants is not always a suitable palliative.

In the few cases where they even understand and appreciate the real requirements of the public sector, such (expensive) private-sector consultants often try to push their own agenda, rather than uphold the interests of the client organisation.  In response to this pressing need, Galaxy has begun developing a substantial Professional Services practice.

The unit’s leading consultants are all private-sector ICT & services experts with years of experience in working with public sector entities.

The Consulting Services Galaxy Backbone offers include:

·Conduct of needs analysis exercises

·Development of ICT strategic plans

·Development of Best Practice-based ICT policies & standards

·Certification of network designs (including integration requirements for the National IT Backbone)

·Development of detailed ICT specifications and preparation of RFP documents

·Assistance in the identification of suitable vendors

·Technical assessments of vendor RFP responses

· Project management of service deployments

·Coordination of workshops (technical briefings, as well as General Solution Awareness Fora)

·Post-implementation project monitoring & assessment

Getting reliable internet services at cost-effective prices have always been difficult for most organisations.  Low cost service providers have often offered poor services – both in quality of the link and in response to resolving customer issues when they arise.  Higher quality service providers are so costly, that it has become uneconomical to secure more than a fraction of the desired internet bandwidth – typically no more than 512k for a large agency.  However, by leveraging economies of scale, Galaxy is now able to offer high capacity bandwidth (2 Mbps & more) at highly competitive prices, and the provision of such facilities with private-sector style service level agreements – which guarantees quality of service.

For many organizations, the ability to connect their remote offices to their Headquarters and to one another is always a major challenge. However, Galaxy’s new nationwide network backbone helps to remedy this by offering connectivity for all sites, regardless of their geographical location.

Such services are achieved using a variety of technologies, based on the requirements of the environment. What is important is that remote offices are able to communicate transparently to all relevant sites – at very cost-effective prices.