Employment Department’s Vendor Day Topic: Customer-Centric Services

Two state departments that are well-known to technologists and residents alike will be holding an event for IT vendors this week.

The Employment Development Department (EDD) and the California Department of Technology (CDT) invite “innovative organizations and information technology market leaders” to the first-ever EDDNext Vendor Day, from 9 a.m.-11 a.m. Thursday. The informational session’s purpose, according to EDD, is to introduce vendors to the EDDNext project and its areas of opportunity, and to obtain vendor feedback to assist in the development of a procurement.

EDDNext is a “multiyear technical innovation project” with the goal of delivering “customer-centric services and exceptional business value,” the department said via email. It aims to engage with customers to improve EDD’s unemployment, disability, and paid family leave benefits programs. Among the project’s investments are a “modernized call center, customer-friendly applications and processes, simplified forms and notices” as well as multilingual resources, expanded data analysis, and enhanced tools and training. The vision for the EDDNext project is improving customer service by providing new services and systems that put customers first. “The EDD is seeking to identify innovative organizations to partner with to transform how we conduct business in a rapidly evolving environment and solve EDDNext challenges,” the department said on LinkedIn.

Areas of opportunity for vendors include:

• Enterprise architecture/business process re-engineering
• Governance service
• Data governance (data standard)
• Quality assurance/quality control
• Claimant management (customer experience/voice of the customer)
• Organizational change management
• Independent verification and validation
• Project management service
  

The morning’s program will include opening remarks, and an overview of areas of opportunity and the presenting of challenge statements. Following the event, companies are invited to “submit their application with ideas, strategies, and approaches to the various challenge statements” via the vendor portal. A link to the vendor portal will be released Thursday. Applications have multiple sections and vendors will be asked to describe their ideas, strategies and approaches to the EDDNext challenge statements, and to provide information on their firm’s qualifications and background. Online applications are due by 11:59 p.m. Sept. 8 but can be saved in draft form and edited until the deadline. Online changes will not be accepted after the deadline.

To attend via Zoom, email maxwell@cityinnovate.com. EDD asks that all companies limit their attendees to three participants.