Meredith Ward, NASCIO Senior Policy Analyst
mward@NASCIO.org
In last month's NASCIO Connections, you may have seen that NASCIO issued a call to action for state IT procurement reform, and you may have noticed that we have been talking about procurement a lot lately. So why all of the procurement talk and why is this important?
You may know that every year, NASCIO surveys our state CIOs on important issues and publishes a report about what we ask. So, in the 2015 report, just like in the 2013, 2012 and 2010 reports, about half of state CIOs have reported negative feelings about the state IT procurement process. Additionally, in December of last year, we asked our private sector partners how they felt about the state IT procurement process and 70% expressed the same negative feelings. One corporate partner even said, "disorganized, inconsistent processes, governance and standards across agencies even with a supposedly centralized procurement function," continue to plague the state IT procurement process. Yikes.
Clearly, it was time for NASCIO to change course in how we were discussing state IT procurement and be more proactive in reforming business as usual.
To start, NASCIO is calling for the following:
- Remove unlimited liability clauses in state terms and conditions
- Introduce more flexible terms and conditions
- Don't require performance bonds from vendors
- Leverage enterprise architecture for improved IT procurement
- Improve the Negotiations Process
If you want to learn more about the five recommendations, feel free to visit NASCIO.org/procurement. I'm also happy to report that, shortly after we released our call to action, our partners at the National Association of State Procurement Officials endorsed the recommendations and we are working with them to achieve state IT procurement bliss.
Where do we go from here? We are meeting with other partner organizations and spreading the word about what we are doing. We'll also be talking about this and discussing at our Midyear Conference in May - hope to see you there!