State and local government transparency web sites shine the light on previously hard-to-get information such as top contractors. This should be welcome news to the vendor community as they now have a new tool to use for competitive intelligence. These web sites can also be used to more effectively target your sales and business development activities.

Kansas became the first state in the nation to sign into law comprehensive spending transparency legislation. Provisions in SB 2368, FY2008 Appropriations Act, required the creation of KanView. The KanView portal was launched in March 2008 by NIC, Inc., The web site is expected to cost about $40 million but it is estimated that the site will generate a $1 billion in savings. In April 2008, Governor Kathleen Sebelius signed SB 316, Kansas Taxpayer Transparency Act, which makes KanView permanent through 2013, when it will need to be reauthorized.

The site was initially populated with spending data from 2006 and 2007 and will be updated each August after the close of each fiscal year on June 30. Transparency web sites are new tools vendors should use to identify what types of technology products and services states are buying and from what companies they are doing business. This is data that has been particularly hard to identify in the state and local market often entailing multiple and lengthy freedom of information requests that only reveal part of the picture. An analysis of the data available in KanView was performed by INPUT and we were able to determine the following:

Source: KanView and INPUT

Source: KanView and INPUT

Transparency web sites are one of the hottest trends in state and local governments right now. Vendors selling a wide variety of data and information products and services have a wealth of new opportunities as a result of this trend and should be closely monitoring legislative activity and executive orders to effectively target governments that are attempting to launch transparency web sites. I believe that once people start examining these sites, governments across the U.S. will feel new pressures for performance measurements to track government efficiency and program effectiveness. These pressures will create additional opportunities at the government agency level for products and services that can assist in the identification of what metrics should be measured and the ability to report how they well they are meeting those performance targets.

For more information on the status of transparency initiatives and analyses of states that have already launched transparency web sites, watch for INPUT's upcoming Industry Insight on the topic.

More information about transparency websites and legislation nationwide can be found in INPUT's latest Industry Insight report "State 'Transparency' Websites Provide Immediate Insights and Long-Term Opportunities for Vendors" (July 2008).