Public sector free-for-all

Will the government really allow smaller firms to grab a slice of the pie this time?

Another week goes by and yet another large government IT deal is up for grabs.

This time it is worth a whopping £6bn – for supplying commodity hardware and software products to the public sector.

According to government procurement arm Buying Solutions, as many as 20 suppliers could be selected as part of the 3.5 year deal, aimed at providing a standardised set of contracts for public organisations to buy hardware and software at preferential prices.

Excellent stuff and very good for our industry – but my question is, will it be the usual suspects such as Capita, Unisys, EDS and other in-house vendor outfits that end up grabbing all the lucrative contracts, or will the government actually honour a pledge for once and give the smaller players a proper chance?

We see it over and over again. The tendering process starts and the tenders start rolling in.

The smaller channel players, and I’m not talking small fry here – are then overlooked in the final stages for the high-end integrators/service specialists that win most deals and often end up costing the public sector more than they bargained for because they are just so big and cumbersome and don’t have the flexibility of smaller, more localised VARs.

When is the government going to learn that the smaller players will provide that specialist emphasis that it so often needs for contracts of this nature?

Let’s hope it is this time.