WIREDGOV

One of the greatest challenges facing today’s Defence industry is keeping up with the rapid pace of change.

With increasing platform acquisition costs and squeezed defence spending, the MOD can often no longer afford to be at the forefront of research and development in many areas, with their budgets dwarfed by those in the technology industries.

The pace of technological change has left project teams struggling to keep up with the demands for cutting-edge technologies from front-line commands, whilst adhering to traditional requirements definition and acquisition processes.

Also, with more non-permanent staff and a shift towards complimenting teams with secondees, agency staff and contractors, the risks of knowledge leakage had become more apparent.

In 2015, it was identified that to ensure the British Armed Forces still have access to the best capabilities, the MOD must improve its access to innovative ideas developed by SMEs, and must find ways of streamlining its acquisition – essentially a rebalancing of the Industry/MOD relationship in a secure environment.

Joint Force Command’s Information Systems and Services (ISS) identified Kahootz as their chosen secure collaboration provider, adopting a system that had been proven and certified for use in other security-conscious government departments.

The system became known as Defence Share, and following certification by Defence Assurance and Information Security (DAIS) the service was accredited for use up to OFFICIAL SENSITIVE (OS).

This certification was a key enabler for use within Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), removing the need for the encrypted disks and couriers that had previously been used for the transfer of sensitive information.

Defence Share remains the only system of its type to achieve this certification in this context.

The success of Defence Share within the MOD and Team Defence environment has not gone unnoticed by the wider Defence community, with an increasing number of prime contractors adopting the service to improve engagement with their supply chain and industrial and academic partners.

If you wish to use Kahootz to foster closer collaboration with other organisations in the Defence industry, start a free, no obligation 30-day trial today.

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