Now is the time for sales executives to confront the changes in the NSW Government procurement market.

“ICT procurement in the NSW Government is undergoing profound change, and only those companies with the most competent government sales managers will continue to win government business,” says Judy Hurditch, Executive Director of Intermedium, a research and consultancy firm providing services to companies selling to government.

“Sales managers must come to grips with what is going on in this $700m per annum marketplace in order to stay competitive.”

AIIA’s NSW Executive Officer, Michel Hedley agrees. “Last year, AIIA obtained valuable feedback from the NSW Government on the impediments to winning government business,” Mr Hedley explains. “NSW purchasing officers across a range of departments told us that ICT account managers could improve their sales performance by better understanding how to deal with government departments.”

“Many ICT account managers have been successful in a commercial environment, and think that they can simply move across to the government sector without changing their strategic approach,” Judy Hurditch adds. “They couldn’t be more wrong.”

The procurement framework, legislative requirements and NSW Treasury direction all make the NSW Government ICT market very different to the commercial sector.

Judy Hurditch says that the NSW Department of Commerce’s State Procurement system manages a substantial proportion of the procurement of ICT goods and services in the state through the use of various pre-qualification processes, chiefly embodied in panel contracts.

“In the near future, we are going to see a continuing consolidation of panel contracts into larger, generic panels,” Hurditch explains. “Gaining a position will only get more competitive – everyone is going to make do or die efforts to achieve a position on these bigger panels, because where once a supplier might try for a position on two or three panels, many of them will find that only one panel remains for them,” she says.

“But not only that, it seems that we will see even more procurement reform, with more than $100m of strategic sourcing activity expected for this coming financial year. Once these opportunities are awarded, it will be three, four or five years before they return to be fully contested in the market again.

“Added to this is the fact that there is a number of new commercially qualified senior people in key roles in the NSW Department of Commerce, so it seems absolutely clear that the ICT vendor community is going to have to do its homework to understand how to respond to the diversity of these challenges” she adds.

On Tuesday 19 July 2005, AIIA’s NSW Government Business SIG, in conjunction with Intermedium, will provide ICT sales people with the perfect chance to ‘do their homework’ when they stage the NSW Government ICT Market Master Class in Sydney. This is a valuable professional development opportunity for any sales, account or business development manager to learn about the challenges and pitfalls of selling to NSW Government.

“Every CEO should be confident that their sales people have an intimate knowledge of the procurement framework and understand how to navigate the culture and structure of the NSW public sector,” says Intermedium’s Executive Director, Judy Hurditch.

The course will provide insight into the key procurement issues facing the NSW Government, and offer attendees face-to-face time with a number of NSW Government procurement specialists.

Judy Hurditch will conduct the NSW Master Class with Robert Wheeler, former Deputy Director-General, Department of Commerce and Head of the Office of Government Information Technology. The NSW Master Class will also feature guest speaker Vince Nair. Mr Nair, the Group General Manager, State Procurement will discuss key procurement issues for the NSW government.

“The NSW Master Class is designed to outline the some of the challenges facing senior management with the NSW public sector and will assist organisations to obtain a better understanding of how to be more effective in developing stronger relationships with government,” Mr Wheeler says.

“Every CEO should be confident that their sales people have an intimate knowledge of the procurement framework and understand how to navigate the culture and structure of the NSW public sector,” Ms Hurditch adds. “Perhaps most importantly, this course will offer suggestions on creating government value propositions with resonance to government agencies and their decision makers.

“This is the ‘must do’ course for the year to help your sales people improve your company’s bottom line.”

To register for the NSW Master Class or its companion ‘Winning Business – Effective Sales Techniques for Government’ (click here for information on Winning Business) visit AIIA’s website.