Why the Australian government needs to level the playing field when it comes to awarding tech contracts

As the CEO of a fast growth Australian technology business, it was encouraging to hear that the NSW government has struck a whole-of-government deal with local company Vault Cloud to improve its access to secure cloud services. This makes it the only Australian cloud provider to hold such an agreement with any state or territory government.

For too long, local technology companies have been hindered from competing for these contracts as they have been too costly and time consuming. The government needs to level the playing field, so that organisations like ours, can actually have a go at winning these technology contracts. Currently, the tender process is so large and complicated that government departments favour existing vendors, so they don’t have to go through the process again. The expertise and skills are very much here in Australia, but the large, global companies get the work.