Govt tech purchases take longer than any other industry: Gartner

Governments around the world are taking almost two years to zero in on technology procurement with ‘significant’ delays holding up the process, according to analyst firm Gartner. The analyst firm said, public sector technology purchasing processes are taking 22 months on average, with delays making up roughly a third of the timeframe in some cases.

The survey, which polled 1,120 executives from around the world during November and December, including 79 from the public sector, saw nearly half of respondents stating they experienced six or more moderate or significant delays in their buying processes. In fact, delays related to changes in scope added an average of seven months to the process. 

In a survey in 2018, Gartner said that the average time to complete a new IT purchase by large enterprise firms takes around 16.3 months, even though some are shorter, some are even longer.

“Technology acquisition brings challenges to the public sector that do not commonly exist in other industries,” said Dean Lacheca, VP analyst at Gartner. 

There are ample challenges in the process, as Gartner noted, each jurisdiction has its own procurement laws and policies, and within that, each agency or department can have its own interpretation of them. A failure to conform to the rules can have serious consequences, from unwanted publicity to personal risk of prosecution.

 A typical public sector buying team has 12 participants, with varying levels of participation in the process, it said. 

 The survey also found significant delays were taking place before procurement began, with factors including scope changes requiring additional research and evaluation at 76% of respondents, reaching agreements around budgeting at 75% and developing business cases at 74% respectively. 

Lacheca noted that “these time frames are also not set, as Initial planned timelines can be delayed as a result of a combination of both controllable and uncontrollable factors, especially when no external deadlines exist.” 

 Moreover, 68% of public sector respondents claiming that moderate to significant delays took place due to difficulty obtaining specific product or implementation requirements details from the provider, which suggests that better technology providers can help in speeding up the process.

 Public sector organisations are significantly more likely to value references from existing clients than non-public sector buyers are, partly because public sector organisations are rarely in direct competition and often share common challenges. 

 “Chosen providers are much more likely to provide fact-based, actionable content to the buying team”, said Gartner, as it recommends technology providers maintain an easily accessible list of public sector reference clients and build a diverse library of product collateral with a strong focus on value assessment, which can be leveraged across all stages of the buying cycle.