Working With a PSU's Existing SI Partner

The startup's architecture was clean. The PSU's identity, the SAP transport path, the jump-box roster and the change-advisory board were all owned by an SI whose contract had three years left. The startup tried to 'go direct to the CISO'. The CISO forwarded the mail to the SI. The SI sat on the VLAN request. Eleven weeks later the startup called the PSU anti-innovation. The PSU called the startup naive.

This guide is for vendors who have to live next to an incumbent — AMS partner, NICSI-adjacent implementer, or a plant IT contractor — and for the PSU officer who has to keep both honest. The incumbent is sometimes a blocker and sometimes the only reason the lights stay on. Your file should assume they exist.

Incumbency is not a technical evaluation mark. If the tender scores 'experience in this landscape', that is a mobilisation fact. If the incumbent writes the tender so only they fit, that is a vigilance fact. Keep those two sentences apart.

Not a teaming-agreement template. Counsel writes those. This is the field RACI we have seen survive first contact.

What the incumbent actually holds

Usually: AD or the identity store, the jump path, the SAP or other ERP transport, the monitoring tenant, the relationship with the SDC, and the informal right to say this change is unsafe. Sometimes also the commercial right of first refusal, written or merely believed.

An agent vendor who needs none of those is rare. A retrieval agent on a standalone box still needs identity and a deny-outbound rule someone with network rights must set. That someone is often the SI.

Write the split. Verbal 'we will cooperate' is not a split.

Object	Default owner	Agent vendor's job
Identity / jump / VLAN	Incumbent SI or PSU IT	Provide a role request, not a shadow admin
ERP connector / transport	AMS partner	Retrieval-only design, purpose tags
Model, packet, purpose	Agent vendor + PSU owner	Export that works if the SI is swapped
Hypercare on the box	Named in the RACI — pick one	Do not both invoice the same night

Commercial shapes that do not rot

Three shapes work. One: the PSU buys the agent as a product and buys SI hours as a change. Two: the SI is prime and the agent firm is a named sub, with flow-down of the training ban and the packet. Three: a consortium named in the bid. What does not work is a side letter the SI has not seen and a hope that CAB will be kind.

Pay the SI for the hours or they will put your VLAN behind every revenue ticket they have. Resentment is a schedule risk. Price it.

Flow down the clauses that matter: no training on PSU data, residency, packet export, subcontracting disclosure, Integrity Pact. A prime that strips those clauses on the way down has sold you a logo.

When to compete the incumbent

Compete them when they want to productise a copilot they cannot isolate, when they demand SAP_ALL for 'discovery', or when they refuse a packet export because 'the platform is integrated'. Those are technical fails. Score them.

Do not compete them for sport on identity and transports. You will lose time and you will look like a risk to the CVO.

The PSU officer in the middle

You own the purpose and the packet. You do not owe the incumbent a product monopoly. You do owe them a change window. Minute both. If the SI stalls a reasonable retrieval role for a month, escalate with the dated request. If the startup bypasses CAB, stop the startup. Even-handedness is how you stay out of a vigilance story.

Objections you will hear — and what to do with them

These are the lines that stall the file. Answer them in the room, then put the answer in the note. A spoken answer without paper will be forgotten by the next officer.

The SI will steal our product.

Then do not give them weights you cannot escrow, and do not put your only copy of the packet schema in their tenant. Partnering is not a merger. Write IP. Be an adult.

We are [DPIIT](/blog/dpiit-recognition-and-procurement-preferences) recognised; we should be prime.

Recognition is an eligibility fact. It does not give you the jump-box roster. Be prime if you can operate the estate. Otherwise be a named specialist.

The incumbent is [L1](/blog/why-l1-pricing-fails-for-ai-procurement) on everything and hopeless at AI.

Score the AI on the AI tests. Buy SI hours for the estate. Splitting the buy is allowed when the file says so. Whining about L1 is not a file.

[NICSI](/blog/meity-nicsi-ai-empanelment-rfe-decoded) empanelment means we do not need the plant SI.

Empanelment is a route to a work order. The plant SI still has the VLAN. Both facts can be true.

A four-week teaming playbook

Have this conversation before the demo, not after the VLAN waits.

1. Week 1: map what the incumbent holds. Ask them, and ask PSU IT separately. Reconcile the two lists.
2. Week 2: pick a commercial shape. Draft the RACI and the flow-down of training ban and packet.
3. Week 3: price SI hours honestly. Put them in the BoQ so they are not a surprise debit.
4. Week 4: joint CAB paper for the first retrieval role. If the SI will not sit in the room, escalate with dates, do not sneak.

How this shows up in the file

Subject: Agent introduction — RACI with incumbent SI, flow-down of controls.

The incumbent SI remains owner of (identity, transports, jump). The agent vendor remains owner of (model, purpose, packet export). Hypercare nights are assigned to (one name). Training ban and residency flow down to every sub. This is not a product monopoly for the SI and not a licence for the vendor to bypass CAB.

This note is not a contract. The contract must repeat these lines.

This article is informational field guidance for Indian public sector undertakings and their vendors, not legal, audit, labour, energy-regulatory, banking-regulatory or procurement advice. Confirm the live circular, DPE guideline, CVC instruction, sector regulator text, purchase manual and your counsel before you file it.

How this clears vigilance and the board

A P5 Startup/Vendor in a PSU will meet CVC-shaped questions even when there is no special 'AI circular'. “Working With a PSU's Existing SI Partner” has to survive a technical committee, a cost centre, and a union conversation if jobs appear threatened.

In a PSU, the incumbent SI is a fact. Partner with a written RACI or lose the transport, the identity store and the first CAB. Incumbency is not a technical score. It is mobilisation. OT networks stay off-limits. Navratna autonomy speeds buying; it does not waive DPDP or data classification. IREPS is not GeM. RBI-shaped rules still localise payment data.

• Classify data before the POC.
• Keep agents off OT.
• Write the board memo with residual risk.
• Engage unions on retrieval vs replacement.

Close this loop before the next CAB

Put “Working With a PSU's Existing SI Partner” on the next change-advisory or bid-opening agenda as a single line item with an owner. If it cannot earn a line item, it will not earn a control. The owner should be a P5 Startup/Vendor, not “the vendor.”

Revisit the item when the model, the GeM term, the region, or the SI changes. “PSU system integrator partnership” is not a one-time workshop. It is a watch item. Date the last check. Unsigned watch items are souvenirs.

What must be true before you file this

If “Working With a PSU's Existing SI Partner” is only a heading, it will not survive a file inspection. A P5 Startup/Vendor should be able to attach one artefact that proves “PSU system integrator partnership”: a log export, a clause, a scored row, a dated notice, or a refusal rule.

Write three dated sentences: what was decided, who owns it, and when it will be re-checked. Unsigned sentences are souvenirs. Dated sentences are controls.

• Name the owner of “PSU system integrator partnership” inside the institution.
• Attach one artefact a stranger can open next year.
• Revisit when the model, the notice, or the SI changes.
• Do not treat a vendor slide as evidence.

What the next file must contain

“Working With a PSU's Existing SI Partner” earns a line in the noting only if a P5 Startup/Vendor can attach proof of “PSU system integrator partnership.” A heading is not proof. A vendor slide is not proof. A workshop photograph is not proof.

Write three dated sentences: what was decided, who owns it after the next posting order, and when it will be re-checked. If you cannot write the three sentences, you are not ready to buy, to sell, or to go live.

Leave unsourced percentages out of the note. DPDP is not a blanket localisation statute. The November 2025 AI governance text is guidance, not an Act. CERT-In’s 28 April 2022 directions still set specified incident and log clocks. A PAC, when lawful, lives in GFR Rule 166.

• Name the designation that owns “PSU system integrator partnership.”
• Attach one artefact a stranger can open next year.
• Record the instrument you are actually using.
• Revisit when the model, the SI, the notice or the posting changes.