Onvia reports state and local government procurement volume up in second quarter

Onvia, a provider of “Intelligence for Winning More Government Business,” has announced the availability of the Onvia State & Local Procurement Snapshot for Q2 2014.

The report analyzes state and local government contracting activity across the nation and follows Onvia’s Q1 2014 market snapshot published in June 2014.

The Q2 2014 analysis finds 2.2% growth in opportunity volume versus the same quarter in the prior year (Q2 2014 vs. Q2 2013). Opportunity volume represents the number of state, local and education bids and RFPs submitted for open bidding by government agencies.

“It is encouraging to see continued growth in the state & local market, led especially by city and county agencies across the country,” said Hank Riner, president and CEO of Onvia. “State and local bids and RFPs represent revenue opportunities for vendors across the country operating nationally, regionally or in their own backyard.”

In analyzing procurement activity by industry, Q2 transportation and vehicle contracting volumes increased 7% versus the year prior, followed by 4.5% growth in construction and construction supplies.

Industries showing the steepest declines in contracting volume for the period were wireless/telecom, IT consulting and educational services.

Paul Irby, market analyst at Onvia explained, “It is important to note that opportunity volume decline is not always associated with a decrease in agency spending. Shared services and consolidated purchasing are big trends right now across all levels of government and are affecting many industry verticals, from education to IT. Consolidated procurement creates an environment of fewer bidding opportunities, but often increases the average award values of those contracts.”

Looking at procurement activity by level of government showed a 5.8% decline in procurement volume by state agencies, a 6.4% increase at city, county, and regional agencies and slight growth of 0.4% among education agencies.

This quarter, Onvia added an additional segment to its market snapshot, analyzing procurement volume both by industry vertical and by level of government. Irby described the reason for the additional detail in this quarter’s report: “What we noticed in the Q2 data was that the decline in growth rate from our Q1 report was not due to a broader slowdown but actually state agencies decreasing the number of bidding opportunities. Most of the state level decline came from a few major industry verticals including IT/telecom and business services. Adding the additional level of government segment on top of the industry data really let us take a deeper look into areas of opportunity for our clients. Architecture, engineering and construction are booming at the local government level for example, but showed a decline at the state level.”