Federal agencies are right to prioritize commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions for procurement modernization. Recent executive orders have provided a clear mandate for 'buy before build'—steering agencies toward proven, market-ready technology to accelerate mission delivery.
But not all off-the-shelf procurement solutions are created equal. The technology landscape has evolved, revealing a critical divide in the world of off-the-shelf acquisition software. On one side of this divide are rigid, single-purpose applications of the past. On the other are agile, low-code platforms that offer commercial-grade features with speed and adaptability without sacrificing compliance—and these are defining the future of procurement.
Why is that? Because legacy COTS solutions come with significant drawbacks:
Rigidity
High customization expenses
Vendor lock-in
Mounting technical debt
Below we explore how these challenges erode efficiency, slow mission delivery, and leave agencies stuck with outdated technology.
Rigidity: procurement isn’t one-size-fits-all
Federal procurement is governed by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), agency-specific policies, and mission-driven processes. Each agency’s mission dictates subtle but crucial differences in how they operate—from the data they need to capture to the systems they connect with. Forcing these unique requirements into a rigid product is a recipe for failure, leading to inefficient workarounds and a system that hinders its users instead of helping.
Legacy-coded COTS software products cater to the “average” process. They’re built to serve a broad customer base, not the nuanced workflows of a specific agency. The result:
Customization bottlenecks. Even small changes—like adding a new approval tier or adjusting contract thresholds—can require vendor involvement (more on this below).
Delays. Agencies must often wait for a vendor’s release cycle or development team to make modifications.
Workarounds. When changes can’t be made quickly, employees fall back on disjointed methods like spreadsheets and email, reintroducing inefficiencies.
In procurement, where compliance deadlines and mission-critical purchases leave no room for delay, rigidity is more than an inconvenience—it’s a liability.
High cost of customization
When agencies need more than the out-of-the-box COTS features, vendors may offer customization—at a price. These costs include:
Vendor-led professional services. Agencies pay the vendor to implement changes.
Extended timelines. Customizations can take months to deliver, especially if the vendor is supporting other clients.
Maintenance overhead. Each customization must be revalidated and sometimes rewritten after every upgrade.
What looks like a fixed-cost investment at the start becomes an open-ended expense over the system’s lifetime. Agencies not only lose budget flexibility, they also lose control of their modernization pace.
Technical debt in disguise
Agencies often adopt hard-coded COTS applications to avoid the technical debt that comes with custom-coded solutions. But this type of COTS software generates a different kind of debt:
Aging architectures. Many COTS products are built on legacy frameworks that lag behind modern IT standards.
Upgrade challenges. Agencies may delay updates to avoid breaking costly customizations—leaving systems vulnerable or outdated.
Integration gaps. Legacy COTS systems don’t always connect easily with existing ERP, HR, or financial systems, requiring custom connectors that add new maintenance burdens.
Over time, this “hidden” technical debt makes modernization more complex, not less.
Vendor lock-in: losing control of the roadmap
Perhaps the biggest drawback of legacy-coded COTS procurement systems is vendor lock-in. Once an agency invests in a solution, the vendor controls the roadmap. That means:
Limited flexibility. Agencies can only implement features when the vendor provides them.
Escalating costs. Licensing and support fees often rise over time, with little room to negotiate.
Dependency risk. If the vendor shifts focus or sunsets the product, agencies are left scrambling.
For procurement, where transparency, compliance, and mission outcomes are on the line, surrendering control to a vendor can create unacceptable risk.
The modernization gap
Technology evolves quickly. Just consider the advancements in AI, automation, and cloud-native architectures over the past few years. But COTS procurement systems rarely keep up.
Some COTS vendors ‘modernize’ by acquiring other companies and attempting to stitch the technologies together, creating a patchwork technology stack that’s difficult to manage and evolve. In these cases, agencies face:
Slow adoption of emerging technologies. Vendors add features on their schedule, not the agency’s.
Inflexible architectures. Integrating AI for contract analysis or automation for supplier onboarding can require major rework—or may be impossible.
Future-proofing challenges. Agencies risk being locked into outdated technology for years because modernization depends on the vendor’s roadmap.
This gap widens every year, leaving agencies with tools that lag behind the mission’s needs.
Consider, for example, an agency that implements a COTS procurement solution to streamline contract management. Then two years later, a new agency policy requires additional cybersecurity documentation for all contracts.
With legacy COTS:
The agency submits a change request to the vendor.
It waits months for the vendor’s next release cycle.
Staff use manual processes in the meantime, creating inefficiency and compliance risks.
The agency pays for customization and testing—again.
The outcome: the system meant to simplify procurement becomes a bottleneck.
COTS procurement solutions often look like a safe bet—they provide quick wins and a baseline of functionality. But for agencies seeking procurement systems that are adaptable, future-ready, and under their own control, hard-coded COTS solutions are rarely the best path forward.
The rigidity of legacy-coded COTS becomes a long-term liability because:
Regulations change rapidly
Processes vary by agency
Mission success depends on speed and compliance
For government procurement, make sure to choose a modern, flexible solution. Agencies need procurement systems that evolve with policy, integrate seamlessly with existing IT, easily accommodate new technologies, and put the government—not the vendor—in control.
The better option is a low-code COTS solution that combines speed with flexibility, openness with security, and modernization with control. Because agencies shouldn’t have to wait on a vendor’s schedule to deliver on their mission.
Read why you should choose a low-code COTS solution for government procurement.
