Peer to Peer Networking Software

Descriptions

This contract is being awarded under regulation6(1)(b)(ii) of the Procurement (Scotland) Regulations 2016 - Competition is absent for technical reasons. Background: UniBuddy was originally purchased by SRA as part of the Covid mitigation activity. This was purchased via 3 quotes route as the value was below 50k. The Business School also uses UniBuddy under a separate contract, however this NCA was consolidate this spend under one contract. Justification: Unibuddy allows our Unibuddies (current students) to have one-to-one conversations with prospective students through their text chat function. In addition to this function, Unibuddy have a live events feature – during the event it allows presentations to be streamed, multiple group conversations on specific topics with our Unibuddies and/or staff, and the ability for them to be direct messaged. These direct messages can then continue after the event. This feature of providing a single event with different ways to provide information and attendees to engage has proved very valuable in recruitment and conversion events, especially for the Business School. No other prospective student’s peer-to-peer product on the market provides the same function to allow one-to-one conversations all year round and live events being integrated into the platform, and utilising the Unibuddies on the platform through the multiple group conversations.