LA County Wants You to 'Know Thy Client'

With more than 10 million residents, Los Angeles County is always looking for technology solutions to business problems.

Vendors who want to work with the county improve their chances of being awarded a bid if they know the following things.

"We are looking for small, very high-value engagements, County Assistant Executive Officer Jeramy Gray told vendors at Thursday's Techwire Briefing. "The number of engagements would increase, but overall we're looking for fast, rapid, efficient, high value impact."

• Working with talent pipelines and educational institutions increases

"If you are partnering with universities to ramp up the talent in the space that you offer certain tool sets, that is another avenue to influence how we approach things," Gray said.

• Contact the deputy director in charge of the program area
• The county wants to deliver programs within months, not years

"Know thy client," Gray said. 

• Aligning a product with the county's strategic goals will speed up project delivery

"Know what we're trying to achieve from a civic responsibility perspective, from a business perspective," Gray said. "So study up on that and when you engage our leaders, really understand what our elected officials are expecting them to do and have a plan for how your product will deliver that priority."

• The county wants to become data-centered, centralizing the information for use across departments, according to County CIO Bill Kehoe
• Changes are coming to the IT contracting process, according to Senior Deputy Director of IT Dave Wesolik