Fulton County Modernizes Procurement and Survives a Cyber Attack with SOVRA

Situation: A System Held Together by “Band-Aids” 

Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, was managed through a bid board on its last leg. Mark Hawks, Chief Assistant Purchasing Agent for Fulton County, described it frankly: “It was held together with Band-Aids, scraps, and everything else,” said Mark Hawks. Solicitations were downloaded online, but all submissions had to be delivered in person, an unfeasible model when the COVID-19 pandemic made physical interaction impossible.

“The pandemic hit, and we realized we had to do something,” said Hawks. “We needed a solution where we could post bids as well as receive bids online.”

Solution: Starting in the Middle and Expanding Full Circle

Fulton County’s modernization journey began where the need was most urgent, sourcing and bidding. During the height of the pandemic, paper-based bid submissions were no longer viable, and the County needed a digital solution that could be deployed quickly. SOVRA’s sourcing module provided exactly that: a way to post solicitations, receive responses electronically, and continue critical procurement operations in a remote environment.

But what started as a crisis response evolved into a full-scale transformation. As the County’s procurement team saw the benefits of digitizing one part of the workflow, they quickly realized that true modernization meant addressing the entire Source-to-Contract lifecycle.

“We started in the middle, sourcing and bidding, and then we said, ‘We need to do more,’” said Mark Hawks. “We went to award, contract management, vendor performance, then circled back to the requester module. We made it full circle.”

Each phase of adoption brought new efficiencies: awards were tracked and communicated more quickly, contract documents were digitized and made auditable, vendor relationships were actively managed, and intake requests were finally structured and trackable. The modular nature of the SOVRA platform allowed the County to expand at its own pace, layering in capabilities based on priority and readiness.

By the time the requester module was implemented, bringing the intake process online, the County had a connected, end-to-end procurement platform that improved transparency, speed, and internal coordination across all phases of Purchasing.

Outcomes for Fulton County

Visibility and Accountability

Procurement requests are now easy to track and verify, giving clear, real-time insight:

“With the requester module in place, we can track legitimate requests. That was the biggest difference. And our senior managers love reports. With SOVRA, we can show them exactly where a request is—no more shell games,” said Hawks.

Cleaner Bids and Better Vendor Relationships

Since switching, vendor participation has improved dramatically:

“We’re getting better bids. They’re cleaner, better structured, and on time. Vendors love that they don’t have to print and hand-deliver anymore. It’s more cost-effective and saves them time,” said Hawks.

Dramatic Reduction in Administrative Burden

SOVRA replaced time-consuming tasks with automation:

“Publishing bid results is now a couple of clicks. We automate communications using templates. Before, we had to write each one manually,” said Hawks.

Procurement Continuity During a Cyber Attack

When the County’s ERP and communication systems were knocked out in a cyberattack, SOVRA kept procurement operational:

“Everybody was down, phones, emails, financial systems, but Purchasing kept going,” said Hawks. “We used SOVRA to help Finance process invoices. At the end, departments didn’t want to give their system access back; they loved it that much.”

The crisis also forged stronger relationships with the Finance Department, which became newfound champions of the platform.

Favorite Features: Functionality That Delivers Real Impact

Bid Evaluation Module

SOVRA’s bid evaluation module replaced Fulton County’s manual Excel-based scoring process with a fully digital workflow. The system enables custom evaluation templates by solicitation, automates scoring, and facilitates simplified collaboration among evaluators.

This feature didn’t just modernize the process; it transformed it. “It eliminated so many errors and hours of Excel work,” said Hawks. “Every solicitation can have a customized evaluation form, and the ease of changing it from one RFP to another was just awesome.”

Collaboration Module

Before SOVRA, collaborating on solicitations involved emailing documents back and forth between procurement, departments, and technical reviewers, often resulting in chaos due to version control issues. With SOVRA’s built-in collaboration tools, stakeholders can co-author documents in real time, track every change, and control permissions.

“Now we can give everybody access, keep track of changes, and once collaboration is finished, publish directly to the sourcing page,” said Hawks. This eliminated the need to manually reconcile edits or worry about departments unintentionally modifying procurement language.