Thanks to technology, government is becoming more efficient, cost effective and user centric. Agencies may not be building all the technology and software internally, but they are certainly procuring them.
In fact, state, local and education, or SLED, governments are increasing the number of bids and requests for proposal at a “historically strong pace over the past year,” according to GovWin+Onvia by Deltek’s “10 Hotspots in Government Contracting for 2018” report. It analyzed more than 4,000 unique industry smart tags to find the areas with the greatest rates of recent growth.
But this progress isn’t happening in every aspect of the marketplace. In fact, a small number of “hotspots” are growing at a faster pace than others, identifying major SLED themes in adopting technology, pursuing efficiency, improving education, enhancing safety, protecting the environment and addressing underfunded pensions. The 10 hotspots are below, and the growth is measured from 2016 to 2017:
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Flying Drones: Drones are tested and developed for law enforcement, deliveries, mapping and natural disaster response. Bids and RFPs for drones rose by 194 percent.
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Outsourcing Smart Fleet Maintenance: Maintaining these fleet vehicles now relies on specialized high-tech equipment, making it harder, and more expensive, to do in-house. The number of bids and RFPs for vehicle maintenance increased by 40 percent.
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Providing Continuous Power: An uninterruptible power supply provides instant power when a main power source fails, which is crucial for protecting from data center, cloud, large IT system and connectivity outages. The volume of UPS bids and RFPs spiked by 39 percent.
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Increasing Officer Safety: Agencies focus on newer solutions to reduce risks to officers, like body armor and bullet-proof clothing. Bids and RFPs for these grew by 34 percent.
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Educating Special Needs Children: Trends affecting special education include assisstive technology in the form of custom software. The volume of bids and RFPs issued for special education have increased by 32 percent.
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Promoting Digital Learning: Public schools turn to new technologies to improve student performance, like digital-assisted teaching methods via software and online portals. The number of bids and RFPs issued by K-12 school districts surged by 28 percent.
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Protecting Coastlines: Because of a rise in coastline erosion, bids and RFPs in coastal engineering, coastal restoration and coastal zone management grew by 28 percent.
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Funding Pensions: Public sector pensions and retirement planning is an ongoing challenge for government. Bids and RFPs in this area have increased by 22 percent.
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Engaging Digital Citizens: Local governments want to attract and retain taxpayers and employers, so bids and RFPs related to website development and online streaming of content services rose by 17 percent.
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Reducing Risk in Construction: Agencies need to protect against risks when procuring a major construction project, especially in cost, schedules, quality, coordination and competition in the bidding process. They’re adopting new process models like construction manager at-risk. The number of RFPs issued related to CMAR projects went up 10 percent.
