Kevin Noonan, Research Director, Public Sector, Ovum

Many procedures for government procurement can be traced back through earlier stages of technology development. Over time, procurement has delivered substantial value and, like technology, it has developed and matured. However, the technology sector is changing at an increasing pace and procurement is struggling to keep up.

Business needs have also changed. Today’s corporate priorities are more about agency-wide productivity and consistency delivering better government outcomes. We recently discussed this phenomenon in the Ovum report Bridging the Gap Between IT Cost-Cutting and Agency Productivity. Some agencies are still chasing simple, across-the-board IT cost-cutting, while others are driving more sophisticated savings measures by focusing on agency-wide productivity. Of course, this approach also requires more sophisticated vendor relationships and a much lower tolerance of failure.

The changing technology landscape requires a rethink of requirements-gathering

Today there is a much richer set of engagement options …