Govt Sector Plays the ‘Sloth’ in Tech Buying! Takes 22 Months on Average

Gartner survey reveals that the government sector's tech buying cycle is significantly delayed

Government organizations around the world have reportedly taken almost two years to finalize technology purchases and are currently demonstrating 'significant' delays with this pause. According to research conducted by the analyst firm, Gartner, the public sector tech buying process has taken almost 22 months on average, with delays making up roughly a third of the timeframe in some instances. Gartner recently surveyed over 1,120 executives involved in technology evaluation or selection, including 79 employees from the public sector, in order to understand how organizations approach large-scale buying efforts for enterprise technology.

Based on the results of the survey, over 45% of the respondents claimed that there have been around six or more moderate or significant delays in the buying process. The cumulative impact of delaying factors such as changes in scope has added around seven to eight months, approximately, to the government's technology buying cycle. Another survey conducted by Gartner in 2018 said that the average time to complete a new tech purchase by large-scale companies or government organizations mounts up to around 16 months, for some companies the cycle is shorter, while for others, the cycle might be longer. In a nutshell, every government sector faces distinct challenges to procure its own laws and policies, implement them, and conduct the entire process.

Generally, a public sector tech buying team possesses around 12 participants, with various levels of participation in the process. Besides this, around 67% of the public sector respondents claimed that moderate to significant delays generally take place because of the difficulty to obtain a specific product or implementation requirement details that suggest that efficient technology providers can actually help speed the process. Besides this, better information from technology providers can also help streamline the entire process efficiently. Garter suggests technology providers maintain an easily accessible list of public sector clients and build diverse leverage in the buying cycle.