What’s Happened in the Last Quarter? Political Shifts, Market Stability & Business Opportunities
With years of experience in government-industry collaboration, GovNet CEO James Tucker unpacks the real impact of political shifts—and why businesses that invest now will reap the biggest rewards.
What’s happened in the last Quarter?
New governments are settling into their mandate with interesting approaches. In the US, government employees had to justify their very purpose with 4 days’ notice. In the UK, the new Labour government is battling with the realities of fiscal constraints and shifting political demands whilst still trying to implement real policy change. I don’t know why we were that surprised in either case. It all feels a bit reactive at the moment.
In the US, the federal government has limited power to impact what anyone does, so they have to make disproportionate noise with the levers they can control (tariffs, ceasefire agreements etc). In the UK, fiscal constraints mean any government would face a similar set of choices faced by Rachel Reeves. I’m not interested in the noisy bit at the beginning. What we care about as a business is how they are going to deliver structural change that is going to improve people's lives. Populism doesn’t deliver much needed policy and the framework for private sector collaboration that is critical for structural investment that makes a difference. Noise is noise. I’m a big supporter of any government taking a fresh approach to drive change, but they must stop making noise at some point and provide clear direction to support private sector collaboration. We’d warn against letting the noise cost you the opportunity.
What I want to see?
Consistency is critical and real change that drives investment is needed especially in the UK. Take the NHS as an example. We’ve had 7 Health ministers here in the UK in 6 years. We’ve had NHSx, NHS Digital and a new vehicle every 6 months to drive digital transformation in the NHS. Wes Streeting might be an effective Health Minister, time will tell, I just want him to stay in his role and let the people who know what the challenges really are get on with it.
NHS trust leaders want to (I hope) and should consult their front-line teammates, who do the work, about what needs to be fixed then have the conviction to collaborate with suppliers to knock down those blockers to change one by one. That’s how we support our teams at GovNet.. I’m really excited for our customers because the middle bit is coming. Whether you agree with either governments approach, they will stay in power for the next 4 years (assuming no Watergate type scandals occur – famous last words). That consistency (even if the people and policy are misguided) is the key to solid collaboration between the government and the private sector and your revenue.
Now is the time to invest.
We’ve been through enough government cycles as a business to know that those who invest during the noisy bit at the beginning generate a disproportionate share of revenue most when things settle. You’re welcome to accuse me of talking my own shop but it’s true. Being part of the conversation is critical. The buying persona base is rarely completely uprooted in the public sector where they have a greater proclivity to just move people around and put a new name on it. This holds true even with more dramatic change (like NHS England being scrapped).
At our events, you have to broaden your perspective to collect more intelligence on the market and make a concerted effort to speak to people you might not consider a critical part of the buying chain. You have to speak to people outside of your top target list and listen. It’s an approach we take with you when deciding where our events go and how to deliver the consistently leading experience your audience deserves. I think it’s important to remind ourselves during these periods that business continues as normal. The spend trends you target continue unabated because the public needs the change your solutions can provide. People will always find a way especially where it delivers good outcomes for customers and the public. The tendency to overreact to news headlines is human but we risk costing ourselves the opportunity in the medium term by letting it influence too much what we build and what we do.
What’s going on at GovNet?
We love curating face to face experiences because that fact remains – government business is done by building relationships face to face. Humans require an inherent level to trust to go with a supplier even when they are not spending their own money. They can we even more fearful because the contract size often eclipses anything they will ever spend in their personal lives. That’s why 2/3 of government contracts have pre-identified the preferred supplier before the tender is even announced.
Internally, made the brave choice to focus up on scaling our best events a couple of years ago at the expense of lots of small ones that didn’t serve the audience or private sector businesses wanting to win government business that well. We get a lot of feedback that the most interesting conversations the lead to the best business can come from people you didn’t know you wanted to meet. Bigger events deliver that. I’m super proud of the teams for delivering growth beyond my expectations. They delivered 35% growth in audience across our events last year and this year looks set to beat that again. We’ve always had a very senior audience because we really give a sh!t and build our events around what they want but that went up as well as proportion of total attendance. Really this year is about more of the same for us and just relentlessly delivering for you. That said, we have the following coming up:
Enhanced Reporting – so you can see your brand views, leads and meetings in a single place across all of our events segmented by buying intent, buying role, organisation type and the other taxonomy you need to build a solid pipeline of business. You don’t (in general) lean on our teams enough to build your market and follow up approach and we’re here to help. This reporting supports your internal conversations.
Digital Marketing Services – more of our customers want the ability to follow up and win additional engagement with their specific target personas outside of our events. We will continue to invest more in this offering at your request but don’t forget in our experience the value of a lead you have met face to face can be > 100x the value of someone filling in a form saying they want a case study from you even though we tend to get it in front of the people you want. You must have a good strategy to follow up.
Fringe Events – We’re very lucky our events have established themselves as THE date in the calendar for a lot of our audience. We want to invest in that more with more fun and experiences outside of the main show floor at our events. We will likely lose money on most of these, but they deserve it. If you want to curate your own experience, ask your sales contact. If it’s boring, we might say no.
James Tucker is the CEO of GovNet. You’ll likely know us through our event brands (Schools and Academies Show, HETT, DigiGov Expo, Counter Fraud and Modernising Criminal Justice). We’ve been delivering for customers who want to win Government business for 28 years and we support the public sector upskill so they can buy better and deliver better outcomes for society.