Onvia Reports State & Local Government Contracting Volume Holds Steady in 2014, Growth Forecasted in 2015

SEATTLE, Feb. 23, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Onvia (NASDAQ: ONVI), the leading provider of "Intelligence for Winning More Government Business," today announced the availability of the Onvia State & Local Procurement Snapshot for Q4 2014. The report analyzes state and local government contracting activity across the nation and follows Onvia's complimentary Q1 2014 and Q2 2014 and Q3 2014 market analysis reports published earlier in 2014.

The Q4 2014 analysis finds that government contract volumes for the full year 2014 vs. 2013 were relatively flat, up 0.2% versus the prior year; however, analysis of contract volumes for Q4 2014 vs. Q4 2013, broken out by industry, highlights much more dramatic shifts in procurement activity. Asked to comment on the data, report author and Market Analyst, Paul Irby said, "Q4 was a volatile quarter for the state, local and education markets. We identified a 4.9% decline in bidding opportunities in Q4 2014 vs. Q4 2013, continuing a downward trend starting in Q2 2014." Q1 2014 saw 5.2% growth in opportunities, Q2 2014 saw 2.2% growth and Q3 2014 saw a 3.2% decline versus the prior year.

Major factors affecting the market as a whole in the most recent quarter include cautious budgeting by state and local agencies, uncertainty around federal funding sources and concern surrounding the 2014 midterm elections. One additional factor affecting the volume of bids and RFPs is the ongoing adoption of cooperative purchasing practices. Cooperative purchasing allows one entity to establish a contract with a vendor for a product or service,  and then open up that contract to allow other agencies to participate as additional buyers on the contract.

Onvia's Q4 report features an in-depth interview with Voight Shealy, Director of Marketing, Education and Outreach at WSCA-NASPO – one of the largest cooperative purchasing entities in the country. The impact of cooperative purchasing on contract volumes can be difficult to quantify as subsequent purchases off of cooperative contracts often avoid going out to public bid.  Shealy indicates that WSCA-NASPO oversees approximately $10.5 billion in total purchasing and that WSCA-NASPO has seen growth rates averaging 15% over the last 5 years. Cooperative purchasing reduces time and costs associated with drafting RFPs and qualifying vendors. Shealy explains, "Historically, the time invested by public agencies to create specifications, to build procurements, has been tremendous and has elongated. One of the things we've been working on, particularly in IT, is to anticipate the needs of states and work with them to put contracts in place ahead of time. So when the head of an agency says, 'I want this and I want it now,' you don't have to wait six months to a year for it."

In addition to analysis of state, local and education (SLED) procurement activity as a whole, Onvia's latest report analyzes government contracting volumes by industry and level of government. Some industries had contract volumes drop by as much as 26% in Q4 2014 vs. Q4 2013, with others declining as little as 2.5% - less than the overall market.  Education agencies had the largest pullback in contracting volumes by agency type, with a drop of 11% in Q4 2014 vs. Q4 2013.

While contract volume has been on a downward trend in the latter half of 2014, the rate of decline is slowing and there are indicators of potential growth for 2015. Looking ahead, a shift towards positive growth in government procurement is forecasted, due to an expected rebound in state and local agency revenues and a growing appetite for infrastructure-related borrowing in a variety of industries at the state and local level. 

Readers can download the full report for free from Onvia's website at: http://www.onvia.com/business-resources/white-papers/SLED-procurement-snapshot-q4-2014

About Onvia
For more than 14 years Onvia (NASDAQ: ONVI) has been delivering the data and tools companies rely on to succeed in the government contracting market. Onvia tracks and reports the spending of tens of thousands of federal, state and local government agencies, giving companies a single source for conducting business with government. For information about Onvia, visit http://www.onvia.com/.

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