Fast tech, slow procurement: Accelerating your software procurement

PayIt employees will share their insights in this series written by our teammates — showcasing the talent, expertise, and positive attitude that each PayIt employee brings to the company. This post contribution is from James Gilligan, one of PayIt’s proposal managers.

Remnants of modern government purchasing practices date back to the 1800s. Unfortunately, when it comes to pace, there’s still a covered-wagon quality to it. 

Government purchasing decisions for technology can take up to 22 months, on average.

While that may be inconsequential for certain types of purchases, it’s certainly an issue in the software space, where development can outpace such a lengthy buying cycle, and what you set out to buy two years ago may not be the best fit today. 

Long, drawn-out procurements like RFPs aren’t just risky in terms of evolving needs. There are also cost implications: They take up significant resources to create, manage, and evaluate. 

No substitute for knowledge: Understand your market

While there are always factors outside your control, there are still ways to speed up the procurement process. Before any acceleration can happen, it’s important to begin any procurement with a working knowledge of the market you’re buying from. Otherwise, no matter the procurement route you take there’s a risk for an extended evaluation process, canceled bid, or even an unnecessarily risky purchasing decision.

• Do your research 
  Read white papers and blogs, leverage media platforms such as GovTech, ask Generative AI for some answers (with citations, of course), and maybe even check out buyer’s guides created by experts in the space.
  
• Talk to industry leaders and esteemed peers
  Contact the vendors that stand out and ask for more details, maybe even a demo. Chat with peers who have similar needs, go to conferences, and attend webinars. Identify who is achieving success and understand the reasons behind it.
  
• Explore the possibilities of tomorrow
  When conducting market research, it’s important to not only understand current capabilities but also where the market is headed. How will your needs change in the future? How is the market evolving to meet them?
  
• Consider a Request for Information (RFI) 
  Whether you plan to release your own RFP or buy off an existing contract, consider a solicitation for information (informal or otherwise). It may seem counterintuitive to speed up the process, but a brief solicitation brings the expertise to your team, rather than having to go find it yourself. 

To RFP or not to RFP?

That is the question — once you have a solid understanding of the market.

Some agencies are compelled to issue their own RFPs based on various regulatory and compliance requirements. But many agencies have the opportunity to leverage existing contracts to expedite their purchasing process. 

This type of purchasing takes two forms:

1. Leveraging a cooperative contract solicited for this specific purpose 
2. Piggybacking off of a procurement completed by a peer agency 

For agencies seeking to accelerate their purchasing process, the benefits of these contracting options are numerous:

• Significant time and administrative cost savings
• Pre-negotiated terms and pricing
• Reduced risk with pre-vetted vendors
• Greater overall value secured through economies of scale

While this option can significantly accelerate purchasing, it’s not a silver bullet: Your team should still conduct all necessary vetting and research to ensure equity and transparency. 

Conduct independent reviews of the vendor, assess contract terms within the context of other options in the market, and offer all required transparency in your findings and justification. Above all, work closely with your legal team to ensure compliance with all applicable regulations.

Cooperative contracts

There are many cooperative purchasing organizations that operate nationwide and are compatible with state and local purchasing regulations. While some states maintain their own programs, at the national level, several cooperative purchasing agencies stand out:

• NASPO ValuePoint  
• Omnia Partners
• Sourcewell

Cooperative purchasing agencies pool the buying power of agencies to secure competitively bid contracts, reducing costs and simplifying procurement. Handling vendor selection and compliance through their own procurements, they do the hard work for you. 

Piggybacking contract 

Piggybacking is an efficient procurement strategy where agencies leverage an existing contract established by another agency to contract with a vendor, often for a similar scope of services. 

If you’ve turned over enough stones during market research, you may have already found a few agency peer contracts to leverage.

When it comes to piggybacking, the fine print still applies. States have their own unique piggybacking restrictions. For example, many states don’t allow (or have special requirements for) piggybacking on out-of-state contracts.

Accelerating your solicitation process

Whether it’s the only option, you need bids tailored to your unique situation, or you want to conduct an RFI to gain market expertise, there are steps you can take to speed up your process, all of which point towards a single goal: 

To clearly articulate your requirements and goals, minimize clarifying questions, and elicit clear, thoughtful responses that streamline evaluation and selection. 

Consider the following ideas from the perspective of someone on the other side of the submission deadline when organizing your next procurement: 

1. Invest time and expertise upfront
   Haste makes waste. Well begun is half done. No, it’s not a new idea (that’s why there are so many rhymes), but the more time you invest upfront in creating an effective structure and set of requirements, the more streamlined evaluation and selection will be.
   
   This is especially important when working in tandem with your agency’s purchasing department. While the basic format of an RFP is oftentimes fairly standard within an agency, the better your requirements articulate the specific goods and/or services you need and the problems you’re trying to solve, the better responses you will receive. 
   
   These days, procurement officials (like many in the public sector space) are expected to do more with less: 74% of state procurement officials report increased responsibilities and stable or reduced headcount. Help them help you by getting involved early on in the process.
   
2. Challenge the status quo
   I’m not saying that your next bid should solicit TikTok dances instead of written responses to your requirements. But using the same copy/paste bid from the prior procurement because “that’s how it’s always been done” can significantly lengthen the process — particularly when vendor capabilities have far evolved since the last bid.
   
   Outdated requirements can lead to lengthy Q&A periods from confused vendors. And as vendors take different approaches to address the requirements and articulate the current functionality they offer, the evaluation process will also take longer. 
   
   Although it may seem less time-consuming in the early stages, the “copy/paste” approach will inevitably lead to a lengthy process in the long run to make the most informed decision.
   
3. Speak the same language
   Formal procurement processes are something akin to the telephone game. Various stakeholders and subject matter experts share their requirements, each of which has their own jargon and “in the weeds” viewpoints. This terminology may not necessarily align with the common language used in the market. Take time to understand the common language spoken by prospective vendors. Remove as much jargon as possible from your solicitation language, ensure requirements speak the same language no matter the source, and if necessary, add a glossary of terms for clarity.
   
   The better your procurement language mirrors the market you’re purchasing from, the fewer clarifying questions you’ll receive from vendors early on in the process, and the more quality responses you’ll receive from qualified vendors.
   
4. Be specific but not prescriptive
   Writing and organizing your bid’s requirements is a tightrope exercise: They need to be focused on your specific needs while also reflecting the capabilities in the marketplace. They need to include your “must-haves” but should still be open-ended for new ideas.
   
   While you should take the time to detail the must-have functionality, don’t spend too much time overwriting your requirements to include every possible element. This “kitchen sink” approach takes more time, and ultimately, doesn’t result in more effective responses. 
   
   Be specific, but not prescriptive. State the problems you’re trying to solve and give vendors the space to respond with innovative approaches.
   
5. Align your structure and evaluation
   It’s important to streamline and simplify the structure of your bid and evaluation criteria as much as possible. This will support the goal of receiving easy-to-understand bids and ultimately reduce the time taken in evaluation.
   
   In the best case, your structure is clear and concise and correlates directly with your evaluation criteria or scoring. For example, the Technical Requirements would integrate with a specific scoring category (and point value), the Integration Requirements relate to another category with a clear point value, and so on. This increases transparency (minimizing questions or even possible protests) and results in more focused bids.
   
   Within your required structure, consider structural elements that make things clear for prospective vendors and evaluators. Elements such as a “yes/no” section for mandatory, non-negotiable requirements can make things much easier for your team.
   
6. Leverage generative AI
   Generative AI (think ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) is widely accepted as a useful tool to speed up both creating your bid and evaluating vendor responses. While it shouldn’t be relied on exclusively (and should be used in accordance with any AI use policies your department or agency may have), it can support both sides of the process.
   
   While the specific capabilities depend on the tools you use, AI can support a variety of tasks such as checking for grammar and spelling, advising on language consistency, suggesting the ideal formats, or collating questions from multiple documents to create your RFP structure. After responses are received, AI can help your evaluation team summarize and analyze vendor responses.

Procurement for the future

An efficient, adaptable procurement process is vital for government agencies to meet their tech goals and maintain public trust. In some ways, the first step to accelerating the process is to recognize that it can, and should, be sped up in the right circumstances.

It’s always easy to blame the rules (and well-intentioned red tape) for slowing things down to a snail’s pace. But when it comes to software purchasing, strapping some rockets to that snail is critical to making the best purchasing decision for your organization and the constituents you serve.