Government Purchasing in 2017 & What's Ahead in 2018?

In terms of government purchasing, how did things go for your industry in 2017? How do things look in 2018?

At the end of each year, Stephen Hetzel, BidPrime’s co-Founder and COO, sits down with Bill Culhane to share his insights on trends in government purchasing from the prior year. As an added bonus, Hetzel provides forward thinking opinions on the year ahead.

The following observations are based on Mr. Hetzel’s evaluation of government purchasing data, along with communications with a variety of industry and government procurement experts.

Government Purchasing in 2017. Year in Review by Stephen Hetzel.

Summary of Hetzel’s findings on what made the headlines in government bid activity in 2017:

• Body worn cameras and evidence storage solutions.
• Infrastructure.
• Software and systems related to marijuana industry.
• Unmanned autonomous vehicles and drones.
• Disaster preparedness and response.

The following is based on Mr. Hetzel’s own forecast models, reviews with BidPrime researchers, analysis of industry trends and predictions, and communications with government procurement experts.

What’s Ahead in Government Purchasing for 2018?

Summary of Hetzel’s predictions for government bid activity in 2018:

• Migrating to cloud services.
• Various industries transitioning to cloud solutions.
• Governments migrating data to the cloud.
• Climate control and environmental solutions.
• Increased monitoring of sea level.
• Disaster preparedness and response.
• Unmanned autonomous vehicles and drones.
• Aerial observation, threat detection and mapping.
• Identity management.
• Cyber security, ransomware and phishing.
• Radiation and explosive device detection.
• Fixed detection systems.
• Education equipment refresh.
• In 2018 and beyond: SCADA, IoT, and the digital currency industry will be hot topics in government purchasing.

As an added bonus, Jennifer Salts, who is the Chief Administrative Officer for the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO), visited ‘The Big Bid Theory’ to share her relevant observations. Here’s a recap of the key points from Salts:

As far as government purchasing in 2017, Salts noted: “Every year NASPO identifies the top ten priorities for states based on rankings from state procurement officials across the nation.”

“In 2017, the top priority was the strategic role of state central procurement. By identifying this as a top priority, our members basically want to ensure that procurement is actively participating in creating an enterprise vision for their states. This can be accomplished through existing centrally led procurement teams, with centralized procurement authorities, and elevated roles in hierarchy of their executive branches leveraging statewide spend,agency relations, and communications and taking an active engagement in operations risk management and IT implementation.”

“As you mentioned I.T. has just been exploding in public procurement and in fact. I was looking on the NASPO ValuePoint website, and they’re in the process of putting together a major cooperative effort for drone technology.”

“It’s just exciting to see what procurement is involved in.”

The conversation transitioned to Salts’s forecast for 2018: “Based on the discussions we’ve had, I.T. is going to make a major jump in the priority list. There’s been a lot of discussion had over the past year I.T. is going to make a major jump in the priority list.”

“There’s been a lot of discussion around I.T. topics in the last year.”

“Specifically on emerging technologies, such as cloud solutions, anything as a service type of procurement, and making sure that we encourage early involvement and collaboration with purchasing divisions, as states move forward and develop these large IT procurements, develop terms and conditions surrounding I.T., cyber security and even different contracting models.”

“These are major efforts that are high priorities for states.”

Listen here for Bill Culhane’s full intervew with Jennifer Salts:

For more information on government purchasing trends, BidPrime, and/or ‘The Big Bid Theory’, please call us at 888.808.5356, or visit BidPrime.