WT Insider Report: Government buyers looking for value over price
By
Nick Wakeman
Over the next 12 months, government buyers will be focused on a variety of technologies, but a common thread that connects them is that they are looking for value and for a tangible business result, according to our new WT Insider Report.
Spending isn’t likely to explode in the next year, but there are definite priorities among government buyers that are important to pay attention to.
According to the findings of our news WT Insider Report on 2017 Trends in Government Purchasing, more than half of the government expects to spend about the same amount over the next year as they did last year. But 32 percent do expect to spend more. And half of that – 16 percent – expect spending to go down.
So we’re expecting a slight improvement, but don’t expect a boom.
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Another key finding of our purchasing trend report is the importance government buyers place on technology. Eighty-seven percent said that technology is mission critical. They also strongly agreed that it is essential to virtually every program at their agency.
What they want most from their purchases is tangible results. That was the most frequently agreed with statement in our survey. Keep that in mind as you prepare to sell to government buyers. You need to answer the question of why they should buy your product or service. What will they get for their money?
The report goes on to explore expected purchases in areas such as cybersecurity, cloud, infrastructure, mobile, big data, public safety, virtualization and health IT.
There also is important information on what customers value in the technology they buy and the vendors they buy it from.
For technology, they are interested most in security features. Price is third on the list. Quality of support is tied with price.
As for their service providers, they want flexibility, experience and relationships. Having the right contracts also is important. Size isn’t much of a factor.
We also gleaned some valuable insights from the demographics we collected as part of the survey.
You can learn more details about this from the full report.