AgNav Action Planner Portal Support, Maintenance and Development

AI-generated analysis of the documents. Check the official notice and any amendments for current submission details.

1. At a glance

2. Scope of Work

This tender seeks a service provider to maintain, support, and enhance the AgNav Action Planner portal. The AgNav platform is a national sustainability initiative developed by Bord Bia, ICBF, and Teagasc, providing farmers with environmental performance data and single sign-on access to the Action Planner. The Action Planner is used by farmers to create tailored sustainability plans. Bord Bia requires the contractor to ensure the portal remains stable, secure, user-friendly, and responsive to evolving project needs.

The scope of work includes:

• Maintenance and Support:
• Service desk and support model provision.
• Incident and problem management procedures.
• Monitoring and alerting arrangements.
• Escalation procedures.
• Root cause analysis methodology.
• Business continuity and disaster recovery arrangements.
• SLA management and performance reporting.
• Development and Enhancement:
• Managing, prioritising, designing, developing, and deploying ongoing enhancements.
• Gathering and assessing enhancement requests, user feedback, and stakeholder requirements.
• Managing and prioritising a shared backlog with Bord Bia and AgNav stakeholders.
• Translating requirements into defined deliverables.
• Sprint planning, development, testing, release management, and deployment.
• Assessing proposed changes for system stability, security, usability, and performance.
• Modernising and enhancing the portal, including potential operating environment upgrades.
• Aligning development activities with ISO 27001 principles, MFA requirements, GDPR obligations, and EU data residency requirements.
• Maintaining knowledge transfer, documentation, and release information.
• Information Security and Compliance:
• Maintaining alignment with ISO 27001 principles.
• Ensuring MFA enforcement and monitoring.
• Protecting sensitive user and application data.
• Maintaining EU-based hosting, processing, and storage.
• Carrying out vulnerability management and patching.
• Managing security incidents and communication.
• Supporting GDPR compliance and data governance obligations.
• Governance, Communication, and Collaboration:
• Defining the governance structure.
• Implementing a project management approach.
• Establishing account management arrangements.
• Defining communication channels with Bord Bia ICT and business stakeholders.
• Setting up reporting arrangements.
• Implementing a fortnightly review process.
• Establishing escalation and issue resolution procedures.
• Continuous Improvement and Innovation:
• Proactively identifying improvement opportunities.
• Developing an approach to platform optimisation and futureproofing.
• Using performance metrics and user feedback to drive improvements.
• Demonstrating experience in delivering innovation for comparable platforms.
• Providing recommendations to enhance sustainability reporting, analytics, workflow efficiency, and user experience.

A detailed specification is available in Appendix A of the tender documents.

3. Background & buyer context

Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, is the government agency responsible for promoting Ireland's food, drink, and horticulture industry globally. The AgNav Action Planner portal is part of a national sustainability platform, AgNav, developed collaboratively by Bord Bia, ICBF, and Teagasc. This procurement is driven by the need to ensure the continued stability, security, user-friendliness, and responsiveness of the Action Planner portal to meet the evolving requirements of the AgNav project and its diverse user base, which includes farmers, farm advisors, AgNav project partners, and processors. Bord Bia aims to foster sustainable growth within the industry.

4. Eligibility & selection criteria

Tenderers must meet the following minimum requirements to be considered. These are assessed on a pass/fail basis.

• Turnover requirement:
• Average annual turnover exceeding €150,000 for each of the last three financial years.
• Firms established more recently must provide pro-rata figures, but must have been in existence for at least 6 months.
• Insurance:
• Employer's Liability: €13 million (or foreign equivalent). Not required for sole traders with no employees.
• Public Liability: €6.5 million (or foreign equivalent).
• Professional Indemnity: €1.3 million for each and every claim (or foreign equivalent).
• Product Liability: €6.5 million (or foreign equivalent).
• Certifications:
• Alignment with ISO 27001 principles for secure design and development is required.
• Past experience:
• Successful delivery of three (3) previous projects of comparable scope and complexity within the last three (3) years.
• Only one (1) of these projects can have been with Bord Bia.
• Personnel:
• A nominated Contract Manager with overall responsibility for the contract and satisfactory service delivery.
• Key personnel assigned to the contract must be available for a potential verification meeting.
• Geographic / facility constraints:
• EU data residency requirements must be maintained for hosting, processing, and storage.

5. Award criteria & scoring

The contract will be awarded based on the Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT), considering the following criteria:

Responses scoring less than 50% in criteria B, C, or D are considered ineligible.

6. Submission requirements

Tenderers must use the provided Tender Response Document (TRD) and adhere to its format.

• Method statement / response document: The TRD must be used. Amendments to its content may lead to disqualification.
• CVs: Detailed information on proposed personnel, their contributions, roles, and responsibilities is required.
• Pricing schedule: Must be completed using the provided pricing template within the TRD.
• Case studies: Evidence of three (3) comparable projects within the last three (3) years is required.
• Declarations:
• European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) or equivalent self-declaration.
• Confirmation of Tax Compliance.
• Declaration of Bona Fides (Art. 57 of Directive 2014/24/EU).
• Declaration regarding compliance with statutory obligations.
• Declaration regarding EU regulation 2022/576 (Russian Actions in Ukraine).
• Declaration of Compliance with Human Rights and Ethical Employment standards.
• Mandatory site visit: Not specified.
• Submission portal: Tenders must be submitted electronically via the eTenders postbox facility on www.etenders.gov.ie. Late submissions will not be accepted.

7. Key dates & process

8. Contract terms that matter

• Term: 24 months.
• Extension: Up to two (2) x 12-month extensions are possible at Bord Bia's discretion, subject to performance, budget, and business needs.
• Payment terms: Not specified.
• SLAs/KPIs: Not specified, but SLA management and performance reporting are part of the scope.
• Liquidated damages: Not specified.
• Termination: Bord Bia reserves the right to award to the next highest scoring tenderer if the successful tenderer cannot deliver services satisfactorily.
• IP ownership: Not specified.
• Sub-contracting: Tenderers may rely on the resources of other entities, but must prove they will have these resources at their disposal. Subcontractors must comply with equivalent human rights standards.
• Guarantees/Bonds: Not specified.

9. Risks, red flags & unusuals

• Estimated value vs. contract length: The estimated value of €100,000 - €110,000 over 24 months suggests a relatively low annual spend, potentially indicating a focus on maintenance and support rather than extensive new development.
• Sustainability weighting: A significant weighting (10%) is placed on "Championing Sustainability within your Organisation," requiring innovative and sustainable proposals to address environmental impact. This is a key differentiator beyond technical capability.
• Minimum scores: Minimum scores are required for qualitative award criteria (B, C, D), meaning a low score in any of these areas can lead to disqualification, even if cost is competitive.
• Incumbent advantage: While not explicitly stated, the requirement for one of the three past projects to be with Bord Bia could favour an incumbent provider if they have previously worked on AgNav-related projects.
• Tender Response Document (TRD) rigidity: Tenderers are prohibited from amending the TRD's content, with potential elimination for non-compliance.

10. SME fit assessment

This tender is structured to be accessible to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), with Bord Bia actively encouraging their participation and the formation of relationships or consortia to meet capacity requirements.

• Who can credibly bid: A small to medium-sized IT service provider with demonstrated experience in web portal maintenance, support, and development. Specific expertise in sustainability platforms or agricultural technology would be advantageous. The firm must meet the financial (turnover) and insurance requirements. Experience with ISO 27001 principles and GDPR compliance is essential.
• Consortium/sub-contracting: Allowed. Tenderers can rely on the resources of other entities to meet financial, economic, or technical capacity requirements. Consortia must appoint a single point of contact.
• Indicative bid-prep effort: Preparing a compliant bid will require significant effort. This includes detailing methodologies for support, development, security, and sustainability initiatives, as well as compiling evidence of past experience and personnel details. A realistic estimate would be 5-10 days of dedicated effort for a small team, depending on the complexity of the proposed solutions and the availability of existing documentation.
• Pwin signal: The tender is open, but the specific requirements for past experience (one project with Bord Bia) and the detailed methodology for delivery and sustainability suggest that bidders with prior engagement with Bord Bia or similar public sector bodies may have an advantage in demonstrating understanding. The MEAT award criteria, with a strong emphasis on methodology (40%) and resources (30%), indicates that technical and qualitative aspects will heavily influence the award decision, not just price.

11. Where to dig deeper

• Source RFT filename: [FInal ITT 27-7-2026 (1).pdf]
• eTenders CFT ID: Not specified in the provided text.
• Contact / Clarification portal: Messaging facility on www.etenders.gov.ie.
• Most important attachments:
• Appendix A – Detailed Specification
• Tender Response Document (TRD)
• Pricing template