Helping channel partners sell to state and local governments: customised playbook

The problem

• Our client wanted to estimate the total addressable market for selling its products to the U.S. government, particularly within the criminal justice system (CJIS) in five key states. In addition, the client wanted to understand the US state government buying process. The goal was to support the client’s expansion into the public sector. 

The solution

To estimate the client’s market opportunity with the U.S. government, we:

• leveraged the U.S. government and education model from Analysys Mason’s SMB Technology Forecaster to establish total IT spending
• gathered insights into spending trends via MSPs by conducting interviews with government IT decision makers and by undertaking desk research.

To map the buying process and identify the steps involved, we used both in-house knowledge (gained from past studies) and conducted expert interviews with IT decision makers in government organisations. This process involved:

• outlining U.S. state government purchase decision-making and buying behaviours
• understanding the bid process and regulatory/compliance requirements
• focusing on five states: California, Florida, New Jersey, New York and Texas
• uncovering the key points of influence and identifying the decision makers throughout the purchasing process.

Figure: TAM methodology for the U.S. government

The result

• We provided a custom playbook outlining the buying process and the regulatory requirements for selling to state and local governments. The findings were used to help approve the go-to-market strategy within the criminal justice sector.
•  The final deliverable included excel pivot tables containing data on government IT spending for the 50 states and a share of spending by CJIS.