Onvia Reports State and Local Government Contract Volume up in Q2 - Led by Local Agency Growth of 6.4%

SEATTLE, Aug. 20, 2014 /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 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. State and local bids and RFPs represent revenue opportunities for vendors across the country operating nationally, regionally or in their own backyard," stated Hank Riner, President and CEO of Onvia.

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." 

Government contracting consultant James Baker contributed to this quarter's report as well. Baker is the author of How to Win Business from the Government and is the founder of Public Sector Technology Exchange (PSTE), a forum to discuss technology business issues impacting the government, citizens and the vendor community. Baker adds market commentary to Onvia's report and authored an article for the report titled "8 Tactics to Win in 2015 for State & Local Government Contractors."

Readers can download the full report for free from Onvia's website at:
http://www.onvia.com/business-resources/white-papers/SLED-procurement-snapshot-q2-2014

About Onvia
For more than 13 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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SOURCE Onvia