If your company has ventured into traditional government procurement, you are probably well aware of the downfalls of the procurement processes. For years, traditional public sector procurement processes have been criticized for being slow, inflexible and for limiting the purchases of goods and services from a select amount of vendors by government agencies. These issues with traditional government procurement processes still persist today. To combat these downfalls, many organizations have devoted resources to improve the processes and overcome hurdles that are detrimental to government innovation and efficiency. If you currently are involved or interested in selling to the government, you should be aware of some of the improvements that are occurring in the government procurement process. The State of California is now implementing a redesigned Request for Proposal (RFP) and IT planning process to prevent backtracking and speed up the deployment of new projects. Traditional government RFPs with long timelines, complex rules, and tight guidelines around liability has discouraged some of the most innovative IT companies from entering the government marketplace. To help amend these restrictions and find better ways to procure technology, North Carolina plans to test products before purchasing them in the state’s new innovation center. This initiative will ensure that products can actually fulfill the statement of work and meet budget requirements. BidSync, a provider of eProcurement solutions, has created a vendor management portal to consolidate the entire procurement process called FastFWD. From soliciting vendors, receiving bid notifications, managing contracts and requesting purchases, this tool provides government agencies with greater ability to manage and grow their networks of qualified vendors, while reducing the amount of time and manpower needed to manage these relationships. FastFWD utilizes new startups to launch new projects and solve old problems from the lack of early engagement with vendors that have led to restrictive or limited solutions. To learn more about the improvements being made to the procurement process, read “5 New Approaches to Government Procurement.”

During the duration of the government shutdown, there are a few things that can be done by government contractors to improve the position of their firm(s) in the Federal marketplace and realign their offerings with more essential government functions. Government contractors can use this downtime to reassess company goals and government sales strategies. As a result, government contractors will be able to create more business value for public sector customers in the next Fiscal Year 2014 while improving on their overall performance. It is important for government contractors to understand what the government shutdown means for their company, and how counteracting the problems presented by the shutdown will be critical to their success.

Contrary to popular belief, teenagers are not the only ones posting pictures and content on social media platforms. Federal, state, and local government agencies have been implementing commercially provided media technologies to promote their services and support their missions. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) highlighted several distinct methods that 23 of 24 major agencies are using to increase citizen engagement through social media platforms. Such activities include reposting information available on official agency websites, posting information not available on agency websites, soliciting comments from the public, responding to comments on content, and providing links to non-government websites.

The city of San Mateo, California is witnessing booming growth in both its population and infrastructure development. Since the year 2008, San Mateo has experienced an 8% increase in population, and home sales have jumped a staggering 28%. Consequently, the municipal government of San Mateo is faced with the enormous task of managing and overseeing the recent expansion while operating on an outdated help desk system. Their objective: maintain networks and PCs for 600 users spread across 22 facilities in a diverse and rapidly growing high-tech city. In order to adapt to these challenges, a new help desk alternative needed to be implemented to better serve citizens.

If you are a government contractor, you should be familiar with the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS). CPARS is the suite of web-enabled applications that are used to document contractor performance. CPARS assesses a contractor’s performance and provides a record, both positive and negative that government officials use to assess companies and potentially use as a determining factor when awarding government contracts to vendors. Information entered into this system is strictly limited to unclassified information only. Assessments in the CPARS are objective facts supported by program and contract management data. These reports include: cost performance reports, quality reviews, financial solvency assessments, and earned contract incentives.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for IT Help desks is no longer a foreign concept to government agencies. This solution can help provide improved government service to citizens from an environment entirely in the cloud. However, many questions of cost benefit and scalability still remain. With the long term ramifications of budget cuts and sequestration slowly taking a strangling hold on government procurement, agencies are scrambling to find new ways to “save a buck.”