Web 2.0 Expo: Navigating the Maze: How to Sell to the Public Sector

Posted on Apr 28, 2009 in Conferences & Networking |

California State Capitol by Trisha Lyn FawverSession Description: Public sector agencies spend billions of dollars each year on contracts with IT providers, small and large. And with the changes in Washington and at the state level, there is a greater interest than ever in Web 2.0 tools and technologies in government. How can you determine if there is a need for your product or service in the public sector? How do you participate in those opportunities? How can you get your foot in the door? Why does is seem so hard? How can your firm can be a part of this dynamic marketplace? This session discuss some of the rules and constraints of dealing with public sector agencies and the opportunities which exist. Come and learn how the public sector entities buy products and services and how your business can become an active participant in this market.

This session took place Friday, April 3, 2009. The speakers:

Bullet Point Review!

  • Virtually every agency within the state has a CIO.
  • They all have a direct dotted line reporting to the state CIO.
  • Mapping the public sector market.
    • Size of the market (large and growing market).
    • Trends.
    • Priorities.
    • Opportunities.
    • Large and Growing Market.
      • State of local government currently spending more than $60 billion annually on IT
        • State of CA spends over $2 billion annually on IT goods and services.
      • The market is expected to exceed $75 billion by 2011.
      • Federal government spends more than $66 billion annually on IT – almost even split between civilian and defense.
        • The Recovery Act includes bill more for health IT and other tech related spending.
      • Total federal expenditure expected to exceed $80 billion by 2011.
    • Government leveraging Web 2.0
      • State of California agencies leveraging YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other web 2.0 technologies to communicate with and engage the public.
        • Focus is now on opportunities to realize real program value – improved outcomes, better service at lower costs – through web 2.0 tools.
      • Federal government entered into agreements w/ YouTube, Flickr and others to enhance government services and improve internal productivity.
        • CIA using Facebook for recruiting.
        • The State Department, The Department of Defense, and Federal intelligence agencies.
    • Policy priorities for state CIOs.
      • Consolidation: centralizing, consolidating services, operations, resources, infrastructure.
      • Shared Services: business models, sharing resources, services, infrastructure.
      • Budget and cost control: managing g budget reduction, strategies for savings, reducing or avoiding costs, activity based costing.
      • Security: security safeguards, enterprise policies, data protection.
      • Electronic records management/digital preservation, discovery.
      • ERP strategy
      • Green IT
      • Transparency
      • Health IT
      • Governance
    • Tech Priorities for State CIOs
      • Virtualization
      • Document/Content/Email Management
      • Legacy application modernization and upgrade
      • Networking, voice and data communications, unified communications.
      • Web 2.0
    • Part of selling to the public sector is understanding the nomenclature.
  • Looking at how to integrate social tools with search.
  • Frame your solution within the context of what state CIOs feel is important.
  • Know where their pain points are.
  • Answer questions before they ask.
  • Resources
  • Everything the individual agencies do has to align with the state goals.
  • The purpose for what we do in IT is to meet the public need – no time to work with toys and “nifty things”.
  • Carolyn: If you’re registered as a small business it’s easy for me to buy from you.
    • One set of terms and conditions across the state.
  • Each agency has a delegation, an amount of money they can spend before the process gets more difficult (extended procurement process)which can take up to 18 mo.
  • This power point is gold to you!
  • It’s a long process to get CMAS, but don’t get discouraged.
  • The government wants what you have!

Points brought up during the Q&A

  • Is any of the procurement system organized by science or across departments?
    • Typically things are broken down by what they’re looking for.
  • Less people are writing letters anymore, so they need more feedback from the people.
  • As soon as you say web 2.0 their eyes are going to glaze over – talk about what these tools will do without relying on the web 2.0 word (as soon as you get to acronyms you’re pushed away).
  • What are your feelings on software as a service?
    • There are pockets of resistance but they’re people that fear software as a service means less work for them. The added value is in connecting with the program.
    • Building an army of solution architects.
    • Supportive of cloud computing if they’re the right fit for the business problem.
    • There’s the fear of losing jobs but also the fear of losing control.
  • There can be preferences based on location based businesses, whether you’re using a military base, only about a 5% preference. No preference on minority or women businesses due to Prop 209.
  • How does the state define small and micro businesses?
    • A small business is $10 million per year or less, or $30 million over 3 years. A micro business is $1 million or less of annual revenue.
  • What’s the time frame on the CMAS process and can you bid on jobs during the process?
    • It averages 30 days, sometimes up to 60 days. It’s based on the GSA (federal government pricing schedule). Find one thing that aligns with the product or service you’re offering. Complete the form thoroughly. If you don’t complete the whole thing, they’ll highlight what’s missing and send it back, starting the process all over again. No bidding during process.
    • Small business only takes 10 minutes to apply on the website.
  • Are there any restrictions on a US company representing a company based outside the US?
    • Only if you’re incorporated in Bermuda or another country for the purposes of evading state or federal taxes. That’s the only real requirement.
  • Recovery.gov
  • Lots of people try to grease the rails; so public servants are extra diligent – many don’t even take private appointments to limit preferred access.
  • Use broad and open process to make sure no one has more access than someone else.
  • Trying to ensure it’s a level playing field.
  • They want to find new and innovative ways, but they don’t want to cross lines and they want to be appropriate.
  • Is there a schedule of vendor fairs?
    • They do them around segments of architecture, not just for people they’ve already done business with.
  • Government technology conferences?
    • Plug for tech people to go there, govtech.com/events

Overall this wasn’t the best session of the Government 2.0 track, but it was insightful.

The slides are available for download here: Navigating the Maze: How to Sell to the Public Sector (PPT).