Now is the time for SMEs in the public sector

In light of this, the experts are urging SMEs to realise that now is their time in the public sector.

Chris Hugo, a director at Govdata, a leading government relationship management consultancy, said: “The major thing that is really impacting on the public sector is not necessarily that outsourcing is changing, it’s just that the supply chain is changing – so we have traditionally seen the large SIs be the deliverers of service.

“Whereas G-cloud, designed for SMEs, is specifically there so that all of these contracts are much smaller, and that the SMEs are actually able to engage and win them.”

G-cloud is a government programme focusing on cloud computing's capability for economic growth, capitalising on cloud's cost savings and flexibility to create a more accessible means of delivering public services.

Lawrence Jones, CEO of web hosting specialist UKFast, said: “The public sector market has always had such high barriers to entry for SMEs, often the cost of the tender process was too high to even pitch for contracts.

“Now is the time for SMEs to challenge the huge firms that have dominated the market and bring their innovation and cost-savings to the sector.”

Dave Carter, Head of Manchester Digital Development Agency, said: “Local authorities are currently in two camps. They feel the only solution is outsourcing and then having started that process they are just eaten by the big boys.

“When you look at the contract compliance issues and the legal time, it has just not been worth it using these big firms. Our approach, on the other hand, has always been to grow the SME market and engage the SMEs under local sourcing, almost in a parallel world, and I think what is really exciting now is these two worlds coming together.

“National government is now encouraging us to do this and hopefully this will become ‘the norm’.”

Nick Rhind, CEO of CTI Digital, believes there is an obvious difference in what SMEs can bring to the table as opposed to the so-called ‘big boys’.

He said: “You can put pressure on SMEs because if a job doesn’t go well you can close that business, so SMEs will put every bit of effort into making sure a project works.

“They will put more time in and use the latest technologies, whereas the major companies have big solicitors, corporate lawyers – they will fight over terms, put projects on hold and eventually there is a pay-out, about which you are horrified to hear when they haven’t delivered.

“An SME would never be in that scenario.”

Carter summed up: “It’s the practicality of the result from using SMEs. It means we can deliver a better service for less but it also means we can innovate with companies who know what innovation is and don’t think innovation should be charged at a premium.”