The Human Side of Government Work: Paola Santana on Procurement

Danny Caine

Picture this hypothetical with me. Your community is home to one of the country’s premier manufacturers of ballpoint pens. This local business has long been a community anchor, employing dozens, contributing to the tax base, as well as sponsoring little league teams and bankrolling civic projects like park renovations and local festivals. On top of all that,

The pens are the best of the best with legions of devoted pen users returning again and again for all their pen needs. Your local government has budgeted $1 million for a major pen purchase. Despite the wonderful pen producer in town who can fill the order quickly and effectively at a fair price, City Hall opts to buy $1 million worth of shoddy foreign-made pens from Amazon. This is a story that’s happening all the time.

with government contracts all across America. The United States government is one of the biggest purchasers in the world. Few people or entities spend more money on more goods and services. Add state and local governments to the mix and you have a massive market with the potential for a lot of businesses to make a lot of money. The act of governments purchasing from businesses, called procurement, quietly hums with billions of dollars every single day.

Yet those billions overwhelmingly end up in the pockets of huge corporations and monopolies. Companies like Amazon are increasingly strong arming their way to dominance in the procurement market, effectively shutting small and local businesses out of the lucrative government purchasing game. It’s possible that a local company in your town, your local economy and build local power for your community, is being passed over by your local government in favor of purchasing from a giant multinational corporation. This is happening even if that local perfectly poised to deliver the exact goods or services needed with top of the line service, speed, and pricing. The game is just rigged. There are many reasons for this.

There are also ways to fight it. Enter Paola Santana, whose company Glass is working to revolutionize the procurement process in favor of local businesses. Glasses platform G-Commerce works in many ways to fill the gaps in the procurement process. For one thing, G-Commerce streamlines a notoriously tangled and process. By applying the tools of civilian e-commerce to procurement, procurers and government purchasers can save time and money with the one-click process rather than clumsy bidding and invoicing that usually defines procurement. Perhaps more importantly, G-Commerce dismantles the barriers to entry facing small and local businesses. By certifying local businesses and giving them direct access to government purchasers, G-Commerce aims to level the playing field and make small government purchases more possible for local businesses. According to Paola Santana, this is a win-win. Local businesses earn lucrative sales and local governments get better service and even better prices.

Paola Santana joins us today on Building Local Power to explain all this and why it’s so important.

Paolo Santana, we are so thrilled to have you on Building Local Power. Welcome. Thank you for being here.

Paola Santana 

Thank you so much for inviting me. I’m super excited to talk about all things procurement, small business, local purchases. So yeah.

Danny Caine

Great. Great, so yeah, you’re something of a trailblazer in the field of government procurement, is a wildly important field. It’s a humongous market, but I think some people, when they think about government reforms and changing the world, government procurement might not be the first place that they land as they begin to dream. So tell us, why does procurement matter and how did you become so passionate about it?

Paola Santana 

So I’ve always loved government and public sector. I did law school to become a politician back in the Dominican Republic. I worked at the National Elections Court, digitalizing the court and organizing democratic processes. And then I had the opportunity to create the first constitutional court in the Dominican Republic from scratch.

Then I was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study the future of governments. And when I had to specialize, I was like, what is the thing that I think that if I understand, I can like move the needle in a way that it’s transversal, that is obvious. What is obvious in government? And the main thesis for me back then was governments are not what we approve in Congress or the aspirations that we have when we write all these laws is about what gets done. And what gets done it’s a mix of the budget we approve at the beginning of every fiscal year and the budget that we actually execute.

So we believe that governments and public sector, they’re not what they say they want to do or what they write that they want to do, it’s what they do. And what they do is what they put money behind or against and in the initiatives that they’re spending the money that they said they were going to spend. So we believe that procurement is the actual implementation of the and the people’s delegation of power.

If you land there, that procurement is how we spend the money that was delegated for public sector to execute, the collective visions that we have, then you find the gap very quickly. You find the gap between what you said you wanted to do and where you invested money on our behalf to make that thing happen. I specialize in procurement. I wanted to understand it from the policy part, like top down or high level. And I also wanted to understand the bottom up granularly And what I discovered was the smartest people that I’ve ever met, accomplished, focused on serving, very high level of integrity, and then not having the tools to get that job done.

So that’s what I’ve been doing with Glass, building the tools that I believe one of the biggest group of decision makers, because they represent the largest buyers in the world that they deserve. So they can scale the things that work and the good practices that they’ve learned while operating their day-to-day jobs.

Danny Caine

It seems like with that explanation, procurement is in a way like a frontline for where democracy actually happens. There’s the talk in the capital, but then the actual work of democracy is who’s spending money on what where. And we’ll get to your work in kind of making those connections in a second. I’m curious about who gets to play this game and who doesn’t traditionally. used to be a business owner. I owned an independent bookstore in a college town with a large state university at the center. And I remember trying to get contracts with the university and it was just really tangled and frustrating and it felt impossible. And I’ve heard from other folks that some procurement policies that they’ve run into are basically written only so Amazon can fulfill these orders and make these contracts. So it’s a big frustration, at least among the booksellers that I know. Why is it so hard for local and small businesses to break into this procurement market and become an option for government and institutional purchasing?

Paola Santana 

The answer is very simple. You are one out of 33 million businesses in the United States. And for someone to find you, you need to be digitalized or you need to be in their systems. So in the United States, across federal, state, local, and universities and public school systems, we have 90,000 government departments trying to make purchases and find people like you.

Is it fair to tell them that they need to find you and they also need to find you fast? They need to make sure you are verified and they have to make multi-million dollar purchases and also make the little purchases and find the big folks and the little folks and to do all of that at once, leave at 5 p.m. and document all of that and do it with a level of integrity that is the one we deserve. ⁓

and that we demand from our government entities and public sector entities. So it’s impossible to do that. for that, for you to be found, you need to be in a place where these people is looking. Where is these people looking? They don’t have the tools. So we go back to the tools. The problem is so daunting that what we do is doing a step back and anchoring ourselves around things that we think are undeniable truths.

One of the barriers of entry is that in order for the business to do business with government, we ask from businesses to have past performance. I cannot ask you to have past performance if nobody has given you a chance in the government realm. So what I’m telling governments is, before you grant a small business a contract for a multi-million dollar something, you know they don’t have past performance. How can we help them build past performance? Not with a multi-million dollar Deal, let’s give them a small purchase, one of the $10,000, $200 per transaction purchase. Once they have executed 200 of the little ones, then they can build some past performance, not based on what they say or what you say, based on exercising the muscle of receiving an order from you, delivering in time with accuracy. So you know that 200 times they’ve done exactly what they say that we’re going to do.

Danny Caine

Your solution is G-Commerce, which is a system you have developed and implemented the explicit purpose of making that connection. So tell us about G-Commerce. How does it work and how successful has it been so far?

Paola Santana 

Thank you. So, G-Commerce is, and I hope I’m making sense on all the things I’m saying, part of the work is to demystify procurement. Like, procurement should not be like, come on, we have a buyer and a seller. can they meet in the middle? And of course, we’re trying to bring the convenience of e-commerce with the compliance of government.

So this mix needs to happen, but it needs to be a balanced purchase. It’s not just the cheapest, it’s not just the fastest, it needs to be, in some cases, the most affordable from the most qualified vendor for that specific type of commodity that you’re purchasing, of good that you’re purchasing, or if it’s an emergency purchase, if you need to optimize to buying green or buying from women-owned businesses or from your community of, you know, veteran-owned businesses, we’re helping governments to make those decisions as they go because not every purchase needs to be the cheapest one. Actually, some things, most things, you don’t want the cheapest light bulb. The cheapest light bulb might fail in the middle of the night in highways. You don’t want to send a whole team to change a light bulb because you chose the cheapest one. So it’s not about that. We need to make different types of decisions as governments. So, G-Commerce is about that convenience and that compliance in one single platform.

We are operating at the federal, state, and local level. We’re working with universities, with public schools, with cities. And each use case is slightly different. The federal government wants to buy American, which is great. Cities want to buy ultra locally from their ⁓ local businesses. Why? Because their local businesses, instead of the city granting them a subsidy,

They’re basically making a purchase that is fully tax exempt from this business, but that enables the business to stay open to gather all their transactions that do collect taxes. And then the more sales these businesses do, the more taxes they collect and the more taxes they pay to the city to enable more city services. So with like a return on investment that is perfect for them. And then for public schools and universities, it’s about providing the compliance of procurement knowing that they are not fully staffed and they’re not fully specialized on procurement.

Danny Caine 

It’s really streamlined. And I feel like the putting streamlined and government procurement in the same sentence is a rare thing until G-commerce was invented. So why is this bloated system based on paper and bids? How has that hung on so long when regular e-commerce is everywhere. Like from almost any business, you can log on and enter a credit card and make your purchase. Why did it take so long for that simplicity to get to the procurement world?

Paola Santana 

The answer that I should give you is because governments are the latest adopters and whatnot, but that is not true

My job every time I go into a government entity and an organization is to remind governments that they are not just the biggest decision makers in the world and the largest buyers in the world, but that they are the original pioneers. I remind them that they created and funded and managed the programs that put the first humans on the moon. And that because of governments and DARPA and NASA, we got the GPS and we got the Internet and we got fund and to use the first semiconductors that today have become into a private sector that is multi-million dollar value and whatnot. So I need to remind them like, hey, wake up. You’re not a clerk. You are making decisions that impact all of us. You are important. You are at the forefront of if our roads work, if I get access to electricity, and if I get access to a good public education. The first thing we do is give them back their agency that everything they do at the little level matters. That’s the first thing we do. It’s a mindset shift and it’s reminding them that they are leaders.

Number two, government folks, they have so much pressure that they think that they need to show up saying that they know what they’re doing and that they know what they’re doing all the time Which doesn’t give them the space to figure out what to do because they already say that they know what they’re doing That’s the second thing and then the third thing that are not enough Glasses Trying to crack the problem over an extended period of time so we can penetrate and improve the problem and improve the solutions to the problem and what

So it’s like, negative loop that we’re trying to break out of by reminding these folks, we know you’re important, you’re a critical piece of decision makers in the world, and we’re gonna stick to this until we crack it.

Danny Caine 

I think that’s a really good explanation of why G-Commerce and all your work benefits governments. I also think there’s tremendous space to benefit local and small businesses. I loved your explanation about the tax cycle where the tax-free purchases keep the businesses open so they can collect more sales tax and give money back to the city. also, you’ve got data on your website that says… ⁓

Purchases through G commerce led to savings of 15 to 33 % when local governments purchased from local businesses. I would argue that the local businesses might even provide faster service or better service for these things. So this is not like charity based purchasing. I think these are also smart economic decisions. So how does G commerce help dispel the myth that shopping local is more expensive? And like, where did that myth even come from? In your opinion?

Paola Santana 

It comes from a natural thought that, you know, if you’re not online and what I’m accessing online and seeing all the time, it’s a specific type of platform. I’m familiarized with that platform. And if I had one or two experiences where buying local was more expensive, comma, because the quality was better, because…the sense of ownership was better because the delivery of the service was better. When you add all of that, you cannot even compare.

So what we are saying, and this is super powerful what you’re asking me, because what I’m telling governments is like, look, I wouldn’t get empowered if you’re giving me a grant or a subsidy.

I feel you’re giving me something that I might be entitled based on what we as a collective decided to support. But if I’m into the business of doing business, the best way to empower me is to do business with me. So do business with me.

When you do business with me, you get me in business. You allow me to exercise and to strengthen my muscle of, again, receiving orders, shipping orders, providing a service, getting rated, asking for feedback and whatnot. Probably you’ve seen every time you go to a business and the owner is around, you can see that quality and that desire to serve

the people that is on that business better and better and better. And it’s not easy because again, you’re doing that with probably low levels of staff and whatnot. So what we asked at Glass is like, let’s forget about all the artificial things. Artificial means the city says that 20 % of their budgets they want to buy local. That’s artificial. Why? Where is that 20 or 23 % coming from? Let’s reframe the question.

In which circumstances is a small business better positioned to respond or connect to a request?

So we’re trying to crack that code for government, understanding that there are many cases in which those small local businesses are naturally positioned to deliver a better service or a better good in a fraction of the time.

And this is where we think that local small businesses can win naturally. No grants, no subsidy, real business for real folks that really want to be proud of the businesses that they’re making with the largest buyers in their communities.

Danny Caine

It’s a powerful argument. So thanks for that. I want to zoom out a little bit and just talk about the political climate because the flow of government money feels really shaky these days. I have a lot of friends in nonprofits who have lost their grants. agencies are being cut. A lot of people are losing their jobs from your position as a player in the procurement game, have you felt this uncertainty? Are you worried about anything? Has it caused any trouble or is it business as usual?

Paola Santana

This is a great question ⁓ and it’s always more easy to give a simple answer and the answer I think is not easy, but I think it’s good and bad at the same time.

A shakeup was needed, is I think it’s important for us to demand that our public systems, the largest of anything, act with a sense of urgency and a sense of agency and a sense of, no, I mean, I know you have a lot on your plate, but we need this to be better.

That on one end, and on the other end to know that you’re talking to a person. You’re not talking to an organization. You’re talking to someone that in some cases and some days is having bad days and in some other days they’re trying their best and for days in a row they haven’t had any win. So how do you talk to someone that hasn’t had any win? Do you just hammer them against the corner or do you empower them? And I think it’s important to see both aspects and understand, okay, how do I empower this sector that needs to be shaken, that needs to be like reminded that they are the original pioneers, that whatever they do, it does make a difference, it does move the needle, but at the same time, how do I do it if they are understaffed, under-resourced, with the worst tools in the market and now…I’m also telling them that they’re not essential.

I think there is a disconnect there. We’re asking them to do better. So we should invest in them so they do better. Actually, this is part of the American DNA.

The American system has a network of 17 national labs that are funded by the Department of Energy. We have discovered through these national labs, nuclear fusion, for example, or something as simple as that the universe is expanding and not contracting.

That took decades of research. So we know in the United States that if we want something to change or if we want to understand something, we need to invest on that. Not get rid of that, not cut that program. We need to invest intentionally on that for decades before we even have any single result. So if we want to transform public sector, we need to invest in public sector, on their people, on their training, on their leadership, on their technologies, on their AI education not cut them because they had not performed to the level we wanted. They could not. We have not given them what they need. disruption is needed. Yes. Shakeup is needed. Yes. And what do we do when we disrupt? We destroy? No, destroying is easy. You know what’s hard? Building. Investing is hard.

So I am, you know, making a call to action to all our political leaders to shake up and build, not to shake up and destroy.

So, you know, I think, It’s gonna turn out right. We just need to be resilient and show up, continue showing up and continue doing the work because again, we’re not gonna transform an industry that hasn’t been disrupted in decades in a month or in four years. It’s gonna take much more than that.

Danny Caine

It’s a really human-centric view of government and the procurement process. And I think that shows in all the work you do with Glass and G-Commerce. Paola Santana, thank you so much for appearing on Building Local Power is a great conversation.

For more details on Glass and G-Commerce, have a look at the show notes. There you’ll find links to G-Commerce itself, as well as a page where local and small businesses can sign up to begin the process of selling on G-Commerce. You’ll also find Paola’s keynote from last year’s One Planet Summit, where she further contextualizes her work at the intersection between government, technology, and local businesses. Here at Building Local Power, we’d love to invite you, our listeners, into the conversation.

If you have thoughts about this or other episodes, ideas for future guests, or if you just want to get in touch, send me a note at [email protected]. And as always, if you like what you hear, please like, subscribe, review, and share with your friends. This episode of Building Local Power was produced by me, Danny Caine, with the help of Reggie Rucker. I did the editing with help from Téa Noelle who also composed the music. Thank you so much for listening, and see you in two weeks.

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