How tech teams can sell software to government agencies

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The private sector knows all about moving fast and breaking things—but trying to bring tech’s innovative edge to the public sector, with its slower pace of adoption, can prove a roadblock for companies trying to sell to markets like state governments.

For most businesses, it could take three to six months to get through the process of winning a contract for a state agency—still shorter than federal procurement timelines, which can span between six to 18 months because of regulations. States have simpler procurement rules, shorter evaluation cycles, and other lower barriers for purchasing.

While all 50 states are unique with their own procurement rules and needs, experts like Quinn Anex-Ries, senior policy analyst for the equity and civic technology team at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said they are all looking to effectively procure software and other technologies safely and efficiently for agencies’ missions.

“There’s still the common need around modernizing basic government systems to keep up with changes in programmatic requirements or needs from constituents,” Anex-Ries said.

Is the public sector behind? Akshara Naik Lopez, senior analyst at Forrester, told IT Brew there’s a misconception that state government agencies (along with local, city, and county governments) are behind the commercial world in adopting new technologies.

“There are most often stricter due diligence rules that they have to follow in their procurement process,” Lopez said. “And with more and more vendors adding AI capabilities, there are more questions than not.”

With the public sector can have unlimited liability clauses, software vendors can get caught off guard in the proposal and selling process. While bigger vendors may have the capacity to meet the requirements for unlimited liability, other software vendors may look for a cap on those liabilities.

Anex-Ries stressed that state governments can be subject to procurement rules that are cumbersome and hard to navigate for both the vendor and the state agency.

State governments could have a very specific method for having vendors submit to requests for information, proposals, and more, like Maryland, which has a different approach to other states who outline their frameworks for proposal and information submittals.

Michelle Day, SVP of AI transformation and go-to-market for Ensono, told IT Brew that business owners should:

• Learn each step of the procurement and approval process in their particular state.
• Establish business need to a state government agency, regardless of a request for proposal.
• Fit the pitch or proposal to the state and the corresponding CIO.

Playbook planning. Lopez said that vendors should seek clarification from government agencies about any risk-based procurement models they might be following. States evaluate the risks in the procurement process to understand potential harms. Vendors can get caught off-guard because the public sector often approaches risk (and regulations) differently.

Additionally, private sector professionals interested in selling to state governments should become familiar with how state agencies differ from one another.

“Some are a little bit more advanced,” Lopez said. “We are seeing some government clients reach out to other agencies similar to them to learn from them and adopt these practices and policies.”

Lopez said that software vendors trying to competitively differentiate themselves should be as transparent as possible, which includes documenting accountability structures and monitoring their processes. That can help further assure government agencies about their suitability for a contract.