Your guide to achieving maximum ROI at the UK's biggest govtech conference

DigiGov25, or Digital Government Expo, brings together a full spectrum of technology buyers across the government. Hosted by GovNet, the UK’s leading provider of public sector conferences and partners of Stotles, DigiGov25 brings together over 3000 public sector tech experts and promises suppliers the opportunity to create new public sector deals for their business.

Companies selling to public sector can expect to access senior decision-makers (think CTOs, Commercial Directors and Transformation Leads) at DigiGov:

• 50% of buyers will be from Central Government departments like DWP, HMRC and the Home Office
• 30% from Local Authorities like West Yorkshire Combined Authority, City of London Corporation and Newcastle City Council
• 20% from healthcare and other departments

And, with £80bn in public sector pipeline across government technology contracts slated for the next 12 months, the opportunity to increase your public sector revenue at DigiGov has never been bigger.

However, despite the huge opportunity the government technology procurement offers suppliers, we hear one thing from suppliers attending conferences over and over.

“We struggle to get ROI from conferences?”

From “we don’t generate deals from events” to “we book meetings, but they don’t turn into winnable pipeline”, suppliers want to make the most of conferences but are faced with challenges when it comes to converting their leads.

That’s why we created this handbook for creating revenue at DigiGov. It’s designed to give you the strategy and data to turn your attendance into meaningful sales outcomes for your business.

With this report you’ll be able to:

• Create a conference strategy before DigiGov: Identify what you need to do before DigiGov find your TAM at the conference so you can spend your time on the buyers will bring ROI.
• Build deal pipeline during DigiGov: Pinpoint the government organisations attending who are showing early buying signals, and come to DigiGov prepared to pursue real, upcoming procurements.‍
• Win more bids after DigiGov: Never miss tenders when they come to market after DigiGov and learn how procurement data is the secret ingredient missing from your bidding strategy.

Why do I need to create an ROI strategy for DigiGov?

Implementing a proactive approach for your go-to-market, particularly across events, drives 11x the pipeline outcomes compared to waiting for tenders to appear.

The suppliers who see the most ROI from conferences are the suppliers who are using data to guide who they target at conferences (and disqualifying accounts who don’t align to their offering), identify early buying signals and use them to build pipeline, and pre-engage buyers in attendance before opportunities come to market. This means, when a tender lands, they’re already in a meaningful conversation with the buyer compared to the suppliers they bid against.

This guide brings together buyer funding flows, procurement pipeline data, and supplier buying signals together with proven and actionable insights to turn your DigiGov conversations into revenue for your business.

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So, you’re going to DigiGov. You know there’s going to be buyers in attendance, but do you know how many of them hold real, qualified opportunities for your business?

Before attending a conference, it’s important to know your true total addressable market (TAM) at the event so your short time at DigiGov is spent as effectively as possible.

Events are a crucial route to market when working with the public sector, but ROI and TAM are not always considered in the same way they would be when compared with direct prospecting day-to-day.

Of the buyers attending DigiGov, do you know:

• Which buyers at DigiGov are investing in your technology?
• Which supplier partners are attending that you could work with to access your target buyers?
• Which buyers at DigiGov align, and favour, your framework listings?

Without knowing the answer to these questions, you have no clear idea how big the DigiGov opportunity is for your business and it’s possible that you could waste time at the conference trying to interact with buyers who do not fit into your TAM.

When preparing for DigiGov, turn to procurement data to guide your strategy at the conference and prevent a “spray and pray” approach across the two days of the event.

Here’s our approach to finding your conference TAM:

1. Identify who is spending:  Which buyers at DigiGov have spent in your area of the market in the last 12 months? This signals readiness to adopt and strategic alignment - these are the buyers you should pursue.
2. Monitor where your competitors are winning: If your competitors are winning contracts with specific DigiGov buyers, that's a sign they could be the right buyer for you.
3. Find supplier partners: Are there suppliers attending DigiGov with a strong foothold in your target account? Approach these suppliers for a meeting to see if you can work with them on an opportunity to access you target account.
4. Consider who fits: Conversations at DigiGov will be a lot more streamlined if you use your target buyers’ routes to market. List the frameworks you’re on, and see which of these routes-to-market is favoured by your target accounts and pursue them as a priority.
   With an astounding 42% of digital government procurement taking place through frameworks, this route-to-market should not be underestimated in starting sales conversations at DigiGov.

To help you do this, we’ve analysed a selection of the most influential Central Government departments and Local Authorities attending DigiGov this year and compiled these data points into two easy-to-digest graphs.

Each interactive graph provides a quick, actionable snapshot of their DigiGov buyers' 2024-25 procurement activity broken down into overall tech procurement and spend across core tech categories.

Target account missing? Sign up to the Stotles platform for free to dive into other Central Government buyers in your target account list.

Here's a view of overall tech procurement by Central Government buyers attending DigiGov in 2024/25.

Here's a more granular view of tech procurement across cloud, cyber and software; data, AI and automation; and digital services & IT modernisation contract value 24/25 by Central Government buyers attending DigiGov in 2024/25.

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Target account missing? Sign up to the Stotles platform for free to dive into other Local Authority buyers in your target account list.

Here's a view of overall tech procurement by Local Government buyers attending DigiGov in 2024/25.

Here's a more granular view of tech procurement across cloud, cyber and software; data, AI and automation; and digital services & IT modernisation contract value 24/25 by Local Government buyers attending DigiGov in 2024/25.

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To understand your TAM, knowing where your competitors are seeing success is essential. It can help you not only see where you might be missing opportunities to sell, but also where the market might be saturated and if your efforts might be better focussed elsewhere.

Understand where your competitors are winning in Central and Local Government to pinpoint buyers who will be open to a conversation about your offering because you know they are already adopting.

But the opportunity from supplier mapping doesn't end there. If you're trying to access target accounts where you don't yet have a foothold, suppliers who are already winning in these accounts could be your key to access in the form of partners.

Whether this is partnering for delivery partners, as part of a consortium, or using them as a VAR - other DigiGov suppliers could be your secret to success.

Consider booking meetings with suppliers who are seeing success in your target accounts to understand how you could work together.

We've listed the top 5 suppliers of Central and Local Government buyers attending DigiGov in the table below to give you a head start in competitor and partner for the conference.

Central Government leading suppliers

Target account missing? Sign up to the Stotles platform for free to dive into other Central Government buyers in your target account list.

Local Government leading suppliers

Target account missing? Sign up to the Stotles platform for free to dive into other Local Government buyers in your target account list.

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For suppliers to both Central and Local Government, frameworks are no longer a nice-to-have when building a robust go-to-market strategy.

Reviewing three years of tech procurement data, we found that 42% of Central and Local Government total contract value went through frameworks. Getting onto the right frameworks, and using them to your advantage, is now essential for long-term success in the public sector market.

While there's certainly not enough time to get listed on any new frameworks before DigiGov, you can still use your existing listings to your advantage in conversations at the conference.

Conversations with buyers about more immediate contract opportunities can be streamlined if you sell in the same way that they buy. Analyse the frameworks you're on and cross-reference those with the frameworks heavily used by your target account. Prioritise these buyers in your DigiGov strategy as easier buying from you could be a key advantage over your competitors.

To get you started, we have analysed 6 of the most important frameworks for tech suppliers selling to the Central Government and Local Authorities at DigiGov.

These 6 frameworks account for 22% of the total contract value and 30% of the volume. While G-Cloud leads the way by volume, Technology Services spent more on average, facilitating nearly £4 billion in tech procurement since 2022.

While these six frameworks saw a significant total spend come through it, only 5% of the total value came from Local Authorities.

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Want a quick overview of how you can Create Strategy in Stotles? Watch this video to find out more.

In public sector sales, timing is everything. If you wait until a tender goes live, you are already behind your competitors.

The key to success is building pipeline earlier. This means spotting the right signals, engaging buyers before your competitors, and focusing your time where it matters most to build relationships with buyers and converting more opportunities into wins.

And, DigiGov is no different. You know your TAM, and which accounts are best to target, but which of these buyers are actually showing the early buying signals that would make them open to a meaningful conversation at the event?

What are early buying signals?

1. Contract expiries and previous awards
   When a contract is due to expire, there’s a high chance it’ll be re-tendered. According to suppliers, 64% of public sector sales coming from existing buyers and spotting these re-tendering moments early is key to staying ahead.
   
   Ahead of DigiGov, monitor upcoming expiries and competitor renewals in your target accounts.
   
2. Strategic documents holding hidden signals
   ‍Public documents often reveal plans before formal procurement begins. Budgets, meeting minutes, strategy reports, and FOI responses can all contain early buying intent.
   
   Use these snippets to plan who you approach at DigiGov, and to better understand buyers’ pains and how you may be able to support them in achieving their goals.
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3. Early stage notices
   Pre-market signals like Planned Procurement Notices (PPNs), market engagement notices, and future opportunity announcements often appear months before a tender is released and signal that a buyer is about to procure more formally that the previous early buying signals.
   
   These notices generally appear six to twelve months in advance and give you time to prepare. You can research the buyer ahead of DigiGov and build relationships on the day, leading to conversation where you can shape the requirements of the tender.
   

Not every buyer at DigiGov is worth chasing down for a meeting. Use early buying signals to help you qualify smarter and spend your time where it’s most needed to create real, qualified pipeline that will become a deal after the conference.

To help you do this, we’ve pulled some upcoming expiries and likely re-procurements from Central Government departments and Local Authorities attending DigiGov this year into a table.

To access the award notices in Stotles, follow the links in this spreadsheet.

Target account missing? To discover other Central Government expiries from your target accounts click through to the Stotles platform, sign up for a free account and explore on your own.

Target account missing? To discover other Central Government expiries from your target accounts click through to the Stotles platform, sign up for a free account and explore on your own.

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Want a quick overview of how you can Build Pipeline in Stotles? Watch this video to find out more.

Step 1: Don’t miss tenders going live‍

After DigiGov, you’ll be continuing the conversations you began at the conference, off the back of early buying signals, to shape the tenders that come to market.

Don’t waste time sifting through hundreds of portals and opportunities to find the right tenders, and find them too late. Make sure you’re the first to know when your tenders hit the market.

Sign up to Stotles for free and let our AI Signal Score generate a relevant feed of new tenders so you don’t need to hunt through mountains of data across multiple portals. We’ll send you emails when new tenders match your business so you can assign these to your team and decide what is worth bidding on.

Want a quick overview of how you can Track Tenders for free in Stotles? Watch this video to find out more.

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Want a quick overview of how you can Track Tenders for free in Stotles? Watch this video to find out more.

Step 2: Never work on a bid you can’t win‍

Like everything in this handbook, using a data-informed strategy is the key to success when winning in the public sector. Bidding following DigiGov is no different.

Qualify early

A single bid can take over four weeks of work, only for bid teams to discover late in the process, or even after submission, that they don’t meet the requirements. Knowing whether a bid is worth pursuing before writing begins is invaluable.

That’s why we’ve introduced our AI-powered bid qualification tool in the Stotles Bid Studio.

It helps suppliers make fast “bid” or “no bid” decisions by combining their bid library with 5+ years of procurement data from our platform. The tool alerts suppliers as to whether they meet conditions like cybersecurity, revenue, or other requirements set by public sector buyers.

Draft with full context

When writing begins, the need for data doesn’t stop.

The strongest bids bring together a complete set of sources. Stotles AI generates drafts powered by 5+ years of spend data, supplier relationships, frameworks, and documents as well as information from your bid library, previous drafts and the internet. This ensures bids address the buyer’s challenge in full context, not with generic or incomplete data.

Collaborate with all stakeholders

Bid managers and stakeholders can collaborate directly in Stotles. From the person who spoke to the decision maker at DigiGov to your finance team, everyone can contribute to a living bid response that becomes the strongest final draft.

Stotles AI doesn’t just write bids. It helps you win them by using data to guide your strategy so you only chase the opportunities you can win.

Want a quick overview of how you can Win Bids in Stotles? Watch this video to find out more.

DigiGov25 is more than just another conference. It is a chance to connect with senior government decision-makers, uncover early buying signals, and turn conversations into long-term revenue.

The suppliers who succeed at DigiGov don’t leave outcomes to chance. They arrive with a clear strategy, focus on the right buyers, and use data to guide every interaction before, during, and after the event.

By applying the insights in this handbook, you’ll avoid wasted effort, cut through the noise, and spend your time where it matters most. You’ll know which buyers fit your TAM, which signals to act on, and which bids you can realistically win. That’s how you turn DigiGov from a two-day event into a year-long engine for growth.

Now it’s over to you. Build your strategy, qualify your pipeline, and pursue the opportunities that will move the needle for your business. DigiGov25 is the stage, but the results are yours to own.

For an easy-to-action template for preparing your outreach before, during and after DigiGov, you can download the Stotles template here.