STREAMLINING PROCUREMENT THROUGH A DIGITAL MARKETPLACE
One impact of the pandemic on the public sector has been the widespread embrace of cloud technologies. Now more than ever, state and local governments are turning to cloud providers for applications related to everything from security to storage to data analytics. Jim Helou, worldwide leader of business development for AWS Marketplace public sector, explained how a digital marketplace can enhance the procurement process.
What is AWS Marketplace and what benefits does it provide to state and local government?
AWS Marketplace is a digital catalog of third-party cloud-based software that includes business applications, reporting capabilities and migration tools. We have more than 2,000 independent software vendors (ISVs) and over 12,000 products.
Many states, cities and counties are pushing to migrate their most active applications from on-premise data centers into the cloud. AWS Marketplace makes this transition as smooth as possible. One way we simplify this transition is by making it easy to research products. Our landing page gives IT directors a chance to research products in our deep catalog.
Marketplace also shortens the timeline to research, buy and provision software. Procurement is one of the more challenging tasks in the public sector, and Marketplace can condense the timeline for that process by almost 50 percent.
Who within the public sector uses AWS Marketplace, and what kinds of products do they procure?
We work with a broad range of federal, state, local government organizations. These agencies turn to Marketplace for a variety of needs. For example, one city’s department of transportation is trying to improve their roads, bridges and tunnels. They found a number of technologies that were central to their goal of improving safety. Another interesting example is the work we’re doing with a well-known research university that is leveraging AWS Marketplace for cloud-based backup and recovery of student data.
The Marketplace also evolves based on what customers are asking for.
What are some differences between using Marketplace and buying a product directly?
Public-sector procurement teams and IT directors run vast organizations that use a variety of products. For each of these products, procurement staff and contracting teams must pick up the phone and enter into a procurement discussion with each ISV and service provider. This takes a tremendous amount of time.
AWS Marketplace centralizes that process so teams can easily find, purchase and provision the tools they need. We are condensing and simplifying how they buy and manage their applications.
How does AWS Marketplace integrate with the reseller community?
Some of our customers like to buy products directly, but many rely on the systems integrator community, including distributors, aggregators and resellers. We have developed relationships with trusted resellers to help meet the missions of their customers as quickly as possible.
Marketplace customers can use the existing relationships they have built with reseller partners over the years but still get a streamlined procurement experience from Marketplace. The customer gets the best of both worlds.
What trends are you seeing in the ways that states and localities use Marketplace?
We are seeing increased attention around private marketplaces. Many state procurement offices are starting to ask for a subset of our rich catalog to bring behind their firewalls and allow their users to access what they need in the environment they are familiar with. This move toward a private marketplace gives organizations a level of control but also frees people to buy the things that are approved in a simple way.
Cloud procurement is getting easier, faster and more flexible, and IT leaders have more control over it.
