New year, new public sector strategy?

We're now into 2021, which means suppliers may be re-evaluating their public sector strategy.

Although not yet quite a new financial year, coming back into a new January gives companies a great chance to look over what’s coming up in the approaching months. With 2020 now in our rearview mirror, should suppliers now be adjusting their public sector strategy? Let’s take a look.

2020: a tough year

In terms of procurement, 2020 was a different year for suppliers and buyers alike. Processes changed and routes to market were either reworked, shelved or moved. For example, G-Cloud 12 opened in September 2020 rather than its usual July spot.

What does this mean for suppliers though? Well, it means that a lot of public sector strategies had to become very reactive. Which in the long term, isn’t a bad thing. Building a strategy that can be reactive and adjust accordingly to volatile (or just unpredictable) environments can be essential when it comes to UK procurement.

As we now begin 2021, we’re going to still see some changes – even at the last minute or without much notice. So suppliers will have to be on their toes.

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Marketing and Sales are a big part of your public sector strategy

This means making sure your public sector strategy fully incorporates your marketing and sales teams. Marketing and sales should be a huge part of your strategy and how you aim to win business within the public sector, and if they’re not on the ball you’re whole company isn’t either.

We talk a lot, and give our clients plenty of advice, on how to sell your services via specific frameworks but the overall encompassing strategy needs to be spot on too.

Routes to market that arrive in 2021 should become enablers for public sector success, not an end goal. You’ll need to add them into your public sector strategy as they arrive, with minimal disruption and quick adoption.

What should I do now?

Make sure you’ve got your public sector strategy fine tuned. Here’s some tips on getting started with your overall strategy we recently put together.

On top of that, make sure your marketing and sales strategy are a priority. In our experience, suppliers who don’t focus on these aspects don’t win the business. We have our full sales and marketing guide for the public sector, with excellent insights from our experts.

Spend your time mapping out what frameworks and Dynamic Purchasing Systems are opening up this year. Prepare for the fact that some of them may move and be delayed, and ensure you’ll be able to manage that.

On an important side note, get to know the new Find a Tender service too, which came into play on 1st January 2021 and replaces the OJEU process before it.

So do I change my public sector strategy for 2021?

In our opinion, if you’ve had success and know what you’re doing is working: No. However, make sure that you’re able to adapt and change to unpredictability. As we don’t expect this to change for the first half of the year at least. Frameworks or Dynamic Purchasing Systems might still have to be moved around, and processes changed a little, to accommodate a challenging landscape.

If you aren’t having any success, then take some time to evaluate why. Check out our guides and see if you’re doing everything you can be to target the right people in the right places.

Hopefully this points suppliers in the direction of some useful resources to help them kickstart their 2021 public sector strategy and get everything ready for the year!