The State of Colorado recently announced their intention to pursue a contract for an eProcurement system on behalf of Colorado and the Western States Contracting Alliance WSCA in an upcoming RFI and RFP.

This will extend WSCA's offerings of procurement related offerings beyond its current procurement analysis and consulting services contracts established by the State of Washington.

Stakeholders at WSCA ( state procurement officials primarily) establish cooperative contracts based on demand, they therefore must see a sizable need for a cooperative contract serving state and local government eProcurement needs. This need is no doubt driven by increased attention to efficiency and transparency in spending, combined with staffing challenges in most procurement offices.

The state and local eProcurement landscape seems to be dominated by a couple different types of governments. Those that were early adopters of eProcurement systems are now looking to upgrade to more robust, enterprise wide purchasing solutions, often integrated with other financial applications. Another group of states and locals are still limping along on legacy or in-house purchasing solutions. So while eProcurement is not new to them, they are considering their first foray into vendor solutions. A third set of primarily locals with little experience in ePurchasing or eGov, stand to benefit from web-based or SaaS purchasing solutions. This last group is likely not who the WSCA contract will target and will likely attract a different set of solution providers also.

So, enterprise eProcurement providers need to keep eye on the upcoming Colorado procurement and remember that Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, and North Carolina may also be looking for eProcurement solutions. And you cloud computing eProcuement folks hit the streets with the locals, they may finally be ready to streamline.