1. Keep your eyes on the market 👀
The catalogue format of G-Cloud offers buyers a pre-approved list of cloud-based products and services and offers suppliers a streamlined route to call-off contracts through direct awards, exclusive mini-competitions, and framework-only call-offs.
But, this does not guarantee success.The leading suppliers remember that G-Cloud is their conduit to access buyers and bypass the red-tape during the procurement itself, but that the most meaningful work is done before this stage.
If you rely solely on your G-Cloud listing, there's a risk that unique aspects of your offering won’t considered against factors like price, or that your listing is not noticed at all because buyers aren’t aware of you, or your keywords.To bypass this, leading suppliers pay close attention to shifts in the market and the ever-changing priorities and strategies of buyers.
The suppliers who do best in the public sector use Stotles to create a personalised feed of open, upcoming and expired opportunities to inform how they interact with buyers.
Rather than scanning the 1400+ UK portals where this information is published, they have a clear idea of what they’re looking for and they look to a single source of truth to find it.While G-Cloud can be a source of truth, it doesn’t tell the whole story of what a buyer needs or is looking for.
This is why attention to what is happening, and what will happen, across the market as a whole is necessary to reap the full benefit of a G-Cloud listing and a streamlined procurement.
While G-Cloud is a much more direct route to market, it rarely offers opportunities to suppliers on a platter.
Build your own custom feed for free using Stotles
2. Target G-Cloud buyers 🎯
G-Cloud’s catalogue structure can limit direct suppliers’ interactions with potential buyers until they are ready to procure but, while this can make it challenging to build relationships through the framework itself, the leading suppliers don’t let this block their success.
Leading suppliers build their sales and marketing campaigns around buyers who have shown a preference for procuring through G-Cloud in the past.
Rather than pursue a generic approach, leading public sector suppliers deploy an account-based marketing and targeted sales strategy toward specific buyers to whom they wish to sell.
Practically, this requires you to build relationships with potential buyers far in advance of a procurement. You should nurture these relationships by understanding buyers’ challenges, responding to their market behaviour, and keeping up-to-date with their latest priorities and strategies so that, when the time comes to procure through G-Cloud, you’re front of mind.
When it comes to marketing to buyers, be specific rather than generic.
Whether this means working with them to add value across events and workshops, publishing reports to support their roles, or running targeted ad campaigns, maintaining a consistent relationship with a presence among your target buyers will support you in becoming the supplier of choice when it is time to procure through G-Cloud.
See which buyers are using G-Cloud using Stotles framework intelligence
Want to know which buyers spend the most on G-Cloud?
Dive into Stotles buyer profiles to understand how public sector buyers are spending on G-Cloud...
| Top G-Cloud buyers in FY 2023/4 | Total spend |
|---|---|
| Department for Work and Pensions | £183,006,803 |
| Home Office | £167,595,940 |
| HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) | £151,145,102 |
| Ministry of Justice | £107,017,102 |
| Defence Digital | £74,044,142 |
| NHS England | £57,522,790 |
| Cabinet Office | £52,571,477 |
| Ministry of Defence | £50,987,437 |
| National Highways | £38,052,783 |
| Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | £34, 083,310 |
| HM Courts and Tribunals Service | £32,801,596 |
3. Partner your way to success 🤝
No supplier is an island, and sometimes, though it may seem counter-intuitive, working with other suppliers can be one of the most fruitful routes to market.
Partnerships using a framework like G-Cloud can take a lot of different shapes depending on the type of supplier you are and the outcome you want.
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For SMEs or public sector novices:
Using a value-added reseller (VAR) to sell your services on your company’s behalf means you don’t have to worry about the hefty amount of resource required to acquire and maintain a G-Cloud listing. By reaching a commercial agreement with a VAR, you can still benefit from the direct route to buyers but without the significant overheads associated with G-Cloud.
If you do decide that a G-Cloud listing is the way forward for your business, nurturing relationships on the supplier side of the market can also provide opportunities. Partnering with established and complementary public sector suppliers who can create warm ‘ins’ to buyers on your behalf, which you can turn into your own relationships or an opportunity bid together.
For VARs, enterprise and experienced suppliers:
Acting as a partner to smaller or less experienced businesses looking to get their foot in the door of the public sector can provide a significant revenue opportunity. If you’re a VAR, you’ll be well aware of the value of providing a gateway to frameworks like G-Cloud for less-established suppliers, but working in addition to such transactional arrangements can be a worthwhile route to market.
Established businesses in the public sector can provide buyer introductions to other suppliers. Partnerships don’t always need to be between businesses of varying scale and experience. If you see an opportunity in the market but don’t quite meet all the requirements, try partnering with a business that can fill those gaps to offer the buyer an end-to-end solution provided by multiple suppliers.
See which buyer are using G-Cloud using Stotles framework intelligence
Who are the top VARs on
G-Cloud?
Assess potential partners who could help you gain access to G-Cloud buyers using Stotles supplier profiles...
| Top VARs using G-Cloud 13 |
|---|
| Insight |
| Boxxe |
| Sabio |
| Crayon |
| Softcat |
| Computacenter |
| Avanade |
| Ricoh |
4. Know the competition 🥊
Understanding where your competitors are, where they’ve been, and what they might do next is invaluable for getting the most out of G-Cloud.
If your competitors are listed on G-Cloud, then you should be too (and if they’re not, you might want to think about why this might be). Be sure to qualify G-Cloud fully to ensure you don’t miss out on opportunities or waste resource which could be better used elsewhere.
It is also worth considering what other frameworks they use, and what their listings look like to ensure you are considered for the same opportunities as them.
Where your competitor is an incumbent supplier on a G-Cloud call-off, you should be building a relationship with the buyer 3-6 months ahead of the expiry date to understand if they plan to renew, what their challenges might be with the incumbent, and where you could add further value to their organisation.
You can’t rely on a G-Cloud listing alone to provide opportunities, so using relationships to demonstrate where you can add more value than the alternatives in the market is what will give you a competitive edge when the time comes to procure.
See the existing contracts between buyers and your competitors...
5. Look out for early buying signals ⏰
Don’t just wait for opportunities to present themselves to you through G-Cloud, pay attention to signs where net-new opportunities may be about to come to the market (before they get there).
When a new opportunity goes live, most of the time the buyer in question already has a supplier in mind and the decision has already been made. For this reason, you can’t rely on G-Cloud being a ‘catalogue’ as most buyers already know what they’re looking for when the time comes to procure.
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Get ahead by paying attention to signals across the market that might tell you that a buyer is about to procure.
Have they mentioned a specific challenge at an event or in a public forum?
Has there been a story in the media that signposts to a need for a particular solution?
Do any of their strategy documents mention a plan to solve a specific challenge or achieve goal?
These types of early buying signals offer you a perfect opportunity to reach out to buyers to offer your support and be considered before a mini-competition or a direct award.
Look at buyer documents in Stotles...
WEBINAR: How do top suppliers use G-Cloud to their advantage?
We’re hosting a webinar for cloud-based products and services suppliers, from G-Cloud veterans right through to those who are weighing up whether it’s the right framework for them, to understand how leading suppliers use G-Cloud to work better with the public sector and secure contracts.
G-Cloud, and frameworks more widely, are not ‘won and done’ platforms and the best public sector suppliers use them as a part of their wider sales and GTM strategies.
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