A New Event for Government Sales and Marketing Professionals
May 22, 2014 1 Comment
We’ve been hearing it quite a bit from our manufacturer clients and channel partners recently: it’s tough out there. Companies that sell technology to the government have faced one challenge after another. Most of us survived Sequestration, continuing resolutions, and the shutdown — often with some scars to show for it — and we hope those are in the rear-view mirror for good.
Uncle Sam is still spending a lot of money on technology products and services, but that growth curve has flattened, and budget pressures have increased competition for every order. Add to that the significant shifts we’ve seen in technology requirements, acquisition methods, the movement towards lowest-price technically acceptable (LPTA) procurements, difficulty in meeting face-to-face with customers…and the increased pressure you’ve probably seen from your corporate office to exceed revenue goals while cutting back on personnel, marketing, and other resources. There’s a long list of reasons for those in our industry to lose sleep.
Luckily, it’s not all doom and gloom. Pockets of technology, like cyber security, remain strong with growing demand. The state and local market is heating up. While some agencies and programs face budget cuts, others are expected to invest more heavily in IT products and services. There are reasons to be optimistic, but you have to know where to look … and what to look for.