Private sector is way forward, claims Ovum
Don't risk your business on elusive public-sector deals, analyst warns
Channel players would be better off concentrating on the private sector, rather than risk chasing elusive public-sector deals, according to market watcher Ovum.
The analyst’s latest report revealed that despite double-digit growth in the UK public-sector software and IT services market during 2005, most of the growth was driven by ‘mega’ deals led by the government, such as the NHS National Programme for IT.
When these deals were taken out of the equation, the market was essentially flat, Ovum claimed.
Georgina O’Toole, senior analyst at Ovum, said: “A lot of growth has been driven by contracts that have already been won, and growth is now trailing off.
“We are not seeing as many big deals coming through. That is why we are saying all suppliers need to start thinking about how they are going to approach the market when there are not so many mega deals around.”
O’Toole added that although deals in the private sector are not the same size as ‘mega’ deals, smaller- to medium-sized players may find more business opportunities in that space.
Pete Mistry, technical sales consultant at VAR Eclipse Group, said that public-sector contracts are few and far between for the smaller suppliers, and they will always be overlooked in favour of bigger players.
“There is not enough market share for smaller players anymore, however much the government says it wants smaller players to get involved in public-sector deals,” he said.
“I can’t see it changing either. It is unfortunate because the smaller players actually understand the public sector far better than the larger players and would be more proactive. However, there seems to be processes in place to prevent players such as ourselves us getting the business.”
>> Further reading:
Channel voices doubts over government portal