What Types of Technology are Governments Buying?

GovWin+Onvia’s Federal and SLED Market Analysis reports are produced by a research staff of more than 100 federal, state, local, and education (SLED) market analysts. The most recent of those reports, the State and Local Procurement Snapshot for Q2 of 2018, highlights details about the current state and local contracting environment and the key factors driving trends and growth rates in SLED procurement.

As a part of this report, we featured expert guest analysis from Jennifer Saha, the National Director for Public Sector Councils at CompTIA. Below we have featured a segment of her analysis that discusses some of the leading trends in SLED government technology.

State and Local Governments Investing in Security

Security has evolved from being a new and emerging category of technology to an absolute necessity. Cybersecurity touches every part of technology, and since technology touches every part of government, it’s truly an enterprise-wide issue that we are seeing addressed in state budgets and expenditures. The GovWin+Onvia research team recognized this trend in their guide, The Rise of Cyber Security, back in 2016 and many of these trends still continue today.

We are seeing more states centralizing security operations either under their CIO or directly under their governors.

- Jennifer Saha, National Director for Public Sector Councils, CompTIA

Opportunities for vendors are wide ranging, from specialized security software that feeds into enterprise systems to security personnel and staff augmentations. Governments need staff that are skilled at combating cyber threats. Because those skills may not exist in government, contractors can serve an important role in augmenting the capabilities of government staff.

Even those who are selling products or services must be versed on security requirements in a government setting. Selling a technology product or solution to a government now requires companies to be versed on the ‘alphabet soup’ of security requirements and standards, i.e. HIPAA, ISO, FedRAMP, NIST, etc.

A common industry perception is that, in general, governments are about five years behind the commercial IT sector in terms of technology adoption. That being said, we can see these emerging technologies making their way into the public sector and savvy vendors will realize that the first to the party gets to eat all the food. Flying drones, body cameras, remote sensors for vehicles, artificial intelligence or chatbots, and mobility applications are now becoming commonplace in governments. Finding government applications for these emerging technologies, and then navigating the complicated government sales cycles, means opening up a very lucrative market in the public sector while helping these institutions improve service delivery and efficiency to their customers, the citizens.

More Legacy System Modernization Government Contracting Opportunities

States are slow to adopt new technologies and their existing IT systems and programs also lag. In 2014, the state of Texas did a ‘legacy systems study’ and found that over half of the 4,130 business applications contained in agency portfolios are considered legacy. In response, the state is taking an approach to system modernization that involves many years of sustained investment in upgrading their enterprise IT applications. Similar approaches, and similar needs for modernization, are taking place across the states and even at the federal level.

Dedicated funding for modernization, creative funding models including profit sharing, and even new technologies that may be more efficient - including cloud technologies - are all prominently featured as states go through a much-needed modernization. Patching applications or hardware has been the norm in tough budget times, but as these legacy systems quickly approach end of life, many governments are forced to recognize more significant investments as vital to the sustainability and safety of state systems.

In our full report Saha explains how governments are buying this technology, and the implications it has for contractors. Click here to download the complete State and Local Procurement Snapshot for Q2 of 2018 for free today.

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