Ideal Partners: Do Tech Leaders Prefer Big Providers or Startups?

IT teams in government have a range of options for building core systems and delivering services to residents. We asked CIOs whether they would rather use large technology providers or startups.
"There’s definitely a place for both. Unfortunately, with the startups, it can be hard to get a foot in the door in the state government, especially in the IT area. So, we do rely on bigger providers to help bring startups in. In Maryland, we have a significant emphasis on small-business enterprise, and increasing that footprint across the state, not just in IT, but all areas of government. We have thresholds, percentages that are identified in all of our contract vehicles. So for the larger providers that we have, even those that have existing contracts, we are consistently increasing that participation rate for SBE and MBE firms. And so ultimately the hope is, the goal is that once they get in there, they can start increasing their business footprint across the state." — Melissa Leaman, Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer, Maryland Department of Information Technology
"I want good partners. And good partners are the people that will invest with us, and that can come in large and small packages. I’m pleased to say that I feel like we do have good partners in Arizona. There’s always room for more. There’s plenty of work to be done, and I think it’s really only limited by the budget, the dollars, and the capacity of the people that we have that we can afford right now. But as that goes forward, I welcome startups as well as established providers. Obviously the challenge with startups is reputation and so I recognize that we need to invest some extra with them, but the fact is that they bring a lot of energy and new ideas and innovation and those are things that we really do need in state government." — J.R. Sloan, Chief Information Officer, Arizona
"I think there’s a lot of risk with startups. You don’t know what the longevity is, you don’t know what direction they’re going to go in. They can pivot and change compared to a well-stabilized strategic partner. They can take on some additional risk for you. They have a larger workforce; they have more partners themselves that tend to be invested in keeping the platform going. A startup can be great for small things, for concepts, for pilots, but we do have to recognize the fact that they can pivot very quickly, they can tank, there’s a number of things that can happen with the startup. That’s not to say that we don’t trust them, but we like it when startups are working with larger strategic partners or there’s investments from larger strategic partners. They’re going to help them become a stable, eventually non-startup entity." — Stephen Miller, Chief Technology Officer, Washington, D.C.
"I think there are benefits to both. We certainly have a lot of really good relationships with some of our vendors that have partnered with us on various projects, but I always like to see somebody new in the game as well. They bring with them new ideas, new concepts, new approaches, so I’m open to both." — Katrina Flory, Chief Information Officer, Ohio
"It depends on what it is. I think that there’s a great case for both. We have some very large SIs [systems integrators] doing some very large implementations within the organization and on some of those really mission-critical systems where you’ve got the federal regulations that quite frankly, it’s better that you’ve been there, done that. At the same time, as we are moving more towards consumer off-the-shelf and away from custom builds, some of these small boutique firms offer a lot more agility and quite frankly a little bit better price on some of these smaller projects. We do a lot of that around our ServiceNow practice where we’ve got basically a list of folks that range from very small organizations to some of the largest SIs." —Kevin Gilbertson, Chief Information Officer, Montana
"I think there’s a place for both. It’s hard to erase some of the expertise that the big providers have or a big SI may have, but I also think in terms of new ideas and nimbleness, smaller, more niche firms, there’s an absolute place for that. That place may be in proofs of value where you set a sandbox up and you prove out some of that technology. The key part is that you’re open to the communication piece, open to the conversation about what it is that you know you need to do." — Craig Orgeron, Chief Information Officer, Mississippi

This story originally appeared in the Winter 2025 issue of Government Technology magazine. Click here to view the full digital edition online.