Reducing budgets, improving processes, and digital transformation top 2021 local government procurement priorities

Bonfire Interactive Ltd. (“Bonfire”), a business unit of GTY Technology Holdings Inc. and a leader in strategic sourcing and procurement software, today announced it has released results from its new survey: Public Procurement Priorities and Strategies for 2021. The survey queried US-based local government procurement professionals on their strategic approach to procurement in 2021 and how they anticipate the COVID-19 pandemic impacting their work this year.

The survey found that more than half of procurement professionals intend to work remotely at least one day per week or more, through 2021. Over 30% of respondents said they plan to work remotely most of the work week.

At the same time, respondents indicated their overall top three priorities for 2021, include:

1. Finding new ways to cut costs and reduce budget
2. Increasing the speed and efficiency of processes
3. Reevaluating digital transformation efforts

The survey responses highlight the continuing impact the COVID-19 pandemic is having on local government procurement and the benefits of flexible, digital solutions that increase procurement speed and efficiency.

“As public sector organizations adapt to the new and changing needs of their constituents, it’s clear that procurement teams are prioritizing cost, speed, and more efficient, flexible processes,” said Omar Salaymeh, Bonfire CEO. “Yet, with a majority of procurement professionals and many vendors continuing remote or hybrid work, digital transformation will be critical to achieve those goals. Many procurement teams are utilizing FEMA reimbursements or federal stimulus like CARES and ARP to help modernize processes, bring them online and become more efficient. It’s imperative that they continue to innovate and embrace digital solutions that meet these priorities in the months and years ahead.”

Since COVID-19 began seriously impacting North American governments in spring 2020, many procurement teams have gone through several phases of digitization to adapt. Countless teams took reactionary measures to ensure operations like proposal submissions, public bid openings, and evaluations could continue to function in the midst of COVID-19, y et, the Public Procurement Priorities and Strategies for 2021 survey demonstrates the importance of reviewing current processes to determine if they include digital capabilities for both procurement teams and others such as evaluators and vendors. Based on the survey, these stakeholders are likely to expect a digital experience upon submitting bid responses, renewing contracts, or communicating with procurement teams.

To read the full survey report, visit: gobonfire.com/learn/survey-results-public-procurement-priorities-2021

About Bonfire Interactive Inc.

Bonfire Interactive Inc. (“Bonfire”) is a business unit of GTY Technology Holdings Inc. and a leader in strategic sourcing and procurement software. Bonfire brings procurement online, ensuring 100% compliance, reducing cycle times, and improving transparency. Through the power of tools optimized for collaboration and in-app access to RFP insights and templates (surfaced from Bonfire’s library of 40,000+ projects), Bonfire unlocks procurement’s potential to drive greater agency impact, achieve better outcomes, and engage colleagues along the way. Bonfire’s proven history of customer-driven innovation is trusted by hundreds of public procurement teams across North America.

About GTY Technology Holdings Inc.

GTY Technology Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: GTYH) (“GTY”)) brings leading government technology companies together to achieve a new standard in citizen engagement and resource management. Through its six business units, GTY offers an intuitive cloud-based suite of solutions for state and local governments spanning functions in procurement, payments, grant management, budgeting, and permitting: Bonfire provides strategic sourcing and procurement software to enable confident and compliant spend; CityBase provides government payment solutions to connect constituents with utilities and government agencies; eCivis offers a grant management system to maximize grant revenues and track performance; Open Counter provides government payment software to guide applicants through complex permitting and licensing procedures; Questica offers budget preparation and management software to deliver on financial and non-financial strategic objectives; Sherpa provides public sector budgeting software and consulting services.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The company’s actual results may differ from its expectations, estimates and projections and, consequently, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Words such as “expect,” “estimate,” “project,” “budget,” “forecast,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “believes,” “predicts,” “potential,” “continue” and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the company’s expectations with respect to future performance. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results. Most of these factors are outside of the company’s control and are difficult to predict. Factors that may cause such differences include, but are not limited to: (1) the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, or other public health crises, on our operations, our customers and the economy; (2) the risk that the ongoing integration of the businesses acquired in our business combination disrupts current plans and operations; (3) the ability to recognize the anticipated benefits of the business combination, which may be affected by, among other things, competition, the ability of the combined company to grow and manage growth profitably and retain its key employees; (4) our failure to generate sufficient cash flow from our business to make payments on our debt; (5) changes in applicable laws or regulations; (6) the possibility that the company may be adversely affected by other economic, business or competitive factors; and (7) other risks and uncertainties included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020 and our subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We caution you that the foregoing list of factors is not exclusive, and readers should not place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. We do not undertake or accept any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in our expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210518005428/en/