Federal Government Business Development Opportunities
1. Federal Government Business Development
You may have heard it all before.
“ Government business takes forever. “
“ Sure there’s money but there are too many hoops ”
• Learn a 3 phase approach to move toward Government contracts in your own time and
your own budget.
• Learn the contracts that can introduce your products and service quickly.
• Learn the difference between GSA, GWAC, IDIQ and other buying vehicles.
• Learn where you can find if your products are already on a government contract – and
often without your permission.
• Implement a marketing program that will get the attention of decision makers and
buyers.
• Jump ahead of the RFQ game.
Email: susanmallen@earthlink.net
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6. Trends in Government Buying
Bottom Line
Although federal agencies are trying to maintain small business contracting goals, pressure to streamline
acquisitions and maximize resources continues to push agencies toward the increased use of contract
vehicles.
Furthermore, agencies are seeking to leverage economies of scale and managed service principles in an
effort to award work efficiently. Doing so helps avoid protests, but it is also significantly delaying some
acquisitions. The results of these trends are illustrated by the fact that solicitations have not yet appeared
for 5 of the INPUT Top 10 Small Business Opportunities forecast for FY 2008.
The FY 2009 list indicates:
• Federal agencies will continue to rely heavily on multiple award contract (MAC) vehicles to fulfill their
requirements, meaning competition will continue to increase for open-market small business set-aside
contracts.
• The consolidation of contracts and systems alike will increase the number of MACs set-aside
specifically for small businesses and task orders within MACs competed among small businesses
only.
• Likewise, as the pace of technology systems and IT network consolidation continues to pick up steam,
fewer new open-market systems integration requirements are appearing.
• Oversight of federal procurement will continue to support small business spending and pressure to meet
Small Business Administration goals is mounting
Source: Input March 2009
10. •
MISSION
The Defense Information
Systems Agency is a combat
support agency responsible
for planning, engineering,
acquiring, fielding, and
supporting global net-centric
solutions to serve the needs of
the President, Vice President,
the Secretary of Defense, and
other DoD Components,
under all conditions of peace
and war.
12. FY 2009 Top 20 Quick Reference List
RANK AGENCY PROGRAM ACRONYM ESTI RFP DATE EST AWARD DATE ESTIMATED VALUE
• 1 Army CTS 04/2009 10/2009 $30 billion
• 2 HHS CIOSPNEW 01/2009* 08/2009* $19.5 billion*
• 3 NASA I3P 01/2009 09/2009 $15 billion*
• 4 Air Force NETCENTS II 12/2008* 05/2009* $9 billion
• 5 Navy NGEN 01/2009* 06/2010* $8.8 billion
• 6 Defense SITE DoDIIS 10/2008 09/2009* $6.6 billion
• 7 State CPLE 12/2008* 4/2009* $6.3 billion
• 8 Defense MiDAESS 02/2009 09/2009 $3.5 billion (Gov’t Est.)
• 9 Treasury TIPSS-4 01/2009* 09/2009* $3 billion
• 10 Defense DISN GSM 02/2009 02/2010* $2.7 billion (Gov’t Est.)
• 11 Army HRSS 01/2009* 09/2009* $2.15 billion*
• 13 Air Force MPEC II 08/2009 01/2010 $2 billion*
• 14 Navy CANES 01/2009 08/2009 $1.9 billion (Gov’t Est.)
• 15 Air Force DESP III 02/2009* 02/2010* $1.9 billion*
• 16 Army CHS III 12/2008* 05/2009* $1.75 million
• 17 Air Force IATAC 11/2008* 06/2008* $1.68 billion*
• 18 NASA RAPID III 01/2009 06/2009 $1.5 billion*
• 19 Air Force GCSS-AF 11/2008 07/2009* $900 million*
• 20 DHS Omnibus 12/2008* 08/2009* N/A
13. 2010 Federal Gvt Opportunities
Bottom Line
The FY 2010 list is, in many ways, a contrast to the previous year’s lists. As a result of high profile re-
compete contracts and the consolidation efforts in various agencies, the opportunities within civilian
agencies have increased considerably compared to prior year’s list. The FY 2009 Top Opportunities
represent $120 billion worth of programs which is a slight increase from the total value in INPUT’s 2008
Top 20 total of $119 billion.
• Task Order based contract vehicles and consolidation continue to dominate the list. Agencies are trying
to squeeze out as much cost savings as possible. Across the federal government, agencies are looking
to use large government-wide acquisition contracts (GWAC) and multiple award contracts (MAC) as well
as consolidation initiatives to save money.
• Vendors are going to have to find positions on these contract vehicles and can expect increased
competition for both prime contracts and task orders.
• Like last year, FY2010 is anticipated to maintain the status quo. With tight budgets and the transition to
a new administration, major new initiatives are not anticipated until this FY 2010 budget cycle.
• As competition increases, vendors will need to position themselves on the right vehicles for their
business and focus on market share.
Source: INPUT 2009
14. FY 2009 Top 10 Set-Aside Opportunities Quick Reference Guide
Rank Agency Program Est. RFP Date Ant. # of Awards Est. Ceiling Value Competition Type NAICS Code SB Size Standard
1 Air Force NETCENTS II
12/2008* 26-38 $4.2 Billion* SB& SDVOB Set-Asides 541511 541512 517110 $25 Million 1,500 ftp
2 Army Support to Assist the Assistant Secretary of the Army’s Manpower and Reserve Affairs
11/2008* 4 $1 Billion SDVOB Set-Aside TBD TBD
3 Army Space and Missile Defense Initiatives Support III
01/2009* 3 $730 Million Small Business Set-Aside 541712 500 Employees
4 NASA Multi-Disciplinary Engineering and Technology Services II
01/2009 2 $500 Million 8(a) Set-Aside 541712 500 Employees
5 Army Strategic Sourcing Environmental Enterprise Services
12/2008 18 $470 Million Small Business Set-Aside 541620 $7 Million
6 Army Information Technology Services Small Business
09/2008 5 $400 Million Small Business Set-Aside 541519 $25 Million
7 FAA Service Operations Support 7 and 8 -Recompete
11/2008* 2 $400 Million Small Business & 8(a) 541519 $25 million
8 DISA DISN Global Services Management Small Business
02/2009 1 $300 Million Small Business Set-Aside 517919 $25 Million
9 NOAA NOAA Link 12/2008* 1-2 $250 Million Small Business Set-Aside 517110 1,500 Employees
1 Navy Consolidated Afloat Network Enterprise Services Service Oriented Architecture Integration Contract
03/2009 1 $250 Million Small Business Set-Aside 541512 $25 million
Note: all 2008 RFP’s listed have been pushed over to the 2009 budget year
17. Top 10 State & Local Justice/Public Safety & Homeland Security Opportunities of 2009 by
Estimated Contract Value
ENTITY PROJECT/PROGRAM SOLICITATION DATE EST. VALUE ($M)
Los Angeles County (CA) L.A. Regional Interoperable Comm Sys (LA-RICS) Q1 2009 $600.0
Los Angeles County (CA) California Transportation Congestion Pricing Project Q3 2009 $213.6
Washington state Wireless Broadband Networks Expansion Q1 2009 $200.0
Illinois Statewide Digital Driver’s License System Q4 2009 $100.0
Oregon 800MHz Trunked Radio Replacement Q2 2009 $75.0
Clark County (WA) Radio/Data System Q2 2009 $40.0
Irving City, TX Consulting Voice Communications Interoperability Q3 2009 $25.0
Monmouth County (NJ) Digital Trunked Radio System Q1 2009 $21.0
San Fran City/Cnty (CA) Build out, Install, and Integr svs MTA Radio Systems Q3 2009 $20.0
Orange County (CA) Public Safety Systems Solution Q2 2009 $15.0
Fire Authority
18. CONTRACTS, GRANTS & LOANS awarded via ARRA – American Recovery Act. Updated 09/10
19. This is a close up of the LA area of California. In this case it shows a contract award winner in
Dynamic Systems with the amount of $587,580. It also shows Dynamic Systems is a Sub
contractor on this award. Now click on view entire award and you will see all the subcontracts,
how much each was awarded and the prime contractor. You will also see a very detailed
description in another window.
20.
21.
22. FOLLOW THE MONEY:
Now you know several things.
1.There is someone in your area
working on a major federally funded
project.
2.You can call them and find out if you
can help or if they might have other
things you can help on.
3.You can continue to pursue each sub
AND the prime.
4.You can begin to understand the
where the money is going and how you
can tap into the budges.
5.REMEMBER –
FOLLOW THE MONEY
Editor's Notes
The title “Follow the money” is the best advice and simplest strategy for approaching any market and in particular the government and military markets, for without a budget all sales and marketing efforts are for not.
Our discussion today fits into a strategic landscape including Markets, Channels, Industrial, Automotive, Federal and Healthcare. For sake of semantics it is important to DEFINE a Market, an Industry, a Channel and how we define our customer.
So in this discussion Markets (or a marketplace) is equal to an Industry.
Channels are modes of selling whether direct or indirect.
Partners can be our customers but in this scenario Partners are company’s that provide an adjunct to our offerings. We are now looking a Government and Government agencies as a Market (Industry) for your company’s growth. Within that Industry there are several Channel partners - one most likely will be the new customer target for you.
We here again the distinction between players in a complex sale. In the Federal Government market complex sales will most likely target the SYSTEM INTEGRATORS as they are much like the sub-contractors in the Major Industry Company’s whether Automotive, Aerospace, First Respnders and the like. As Delphi might be a sub-contractor and supplier to GM, so to is L3 or Lockheed a sub-contractor to Government agencies which are conduits to Military projects and obviously Military budgets.
Channels are integral to the flow of money from the military and federal budget out to Agencies, Prime Contractors, Sub-contractors, Contract Vehicles and contracting VAR’s.
Until now, many in this audience have primarily relied on a Direct to End User sales and marketing model. With the Federal Government the best way to win business is to understand the players and player responsibilities. This sales model is indirect in many deals and as your company grows in its ability to understand and win in the market, the final play will be directly to the endusers.
That is not to say you will not begin your marketing and sales with the military branch contracting officers, or contract officers on agency specific contracts sush as, FAA, SEWP, NIH, DHS, DOD and others. You will be pursing them also.
The basic take away from this slide is that in the coming 5 years, with the economic stimulus package money getting where it needs to be contracting officers will be inundated with bids, competitive, set aside of all type. You job is to get out of that rat race while at the same time making it easier for you officer and their buyers to select you in a NON-BID situation. If you have a GSA don’t let the buyer or officer tell you it has to have 3 bids gotten on it – it already has.
With this inundation of bids the easiest way to get them across the procurement or contract officers desk is to list it on a contract. This is not difficult to do. If you have a competitive bid simply let the officer know that if they need a GSA, 8A, HubZone or Veteran’s certification you have TEAMING AGREEMENT for those. This is good news to the officer! His/Her job just got way better and much easier.
The best overall vision to help grasp how to get govt contracts is to understand the flow of money and how your company might participate in this flow - Where do you fit?
Where are you trying to go?
Who is YOUR customer?
The answer will always be to FOLLOW THE MONEY.
The money comes from the Federal Government is allocated to Depts and Agencies that manage the administration, procurement and projects of endusers such as the military branches.
We can use this example to show how to follow the money. In this case Dept of Homeland Security has the budget. One of many project they are managing is a contract to purchase IT hardware and software called First Source. This contract for this project is then bid and awarded. Sometime it is sole sourced. In this case ONE of the winners of the contract is a Federal Government VAR named Govt Acquisitions.
Govt Acquistions also has relationships and contracts on many more DHS contracts. So when attempting to grow business in the Federal Government, Govt Acquisitions may be a good partner to know. Once a contract is awarded theses few awardees are the ONLY way for that agency and it’s endusers to buy product or services.
This is a PRECOMPETED contract.
Other agency’s, other than DHS, may also be able to use this contract to purchase goods for their projects. This is the KEY TO THE GOVERNMENT BUYING KINGDOM.
This “follow the money” strategy can be implemented over and over for every government contract.These are Value Added Resellers who have won contracts. So Emtec is a winner on the ADMC program, World Wide Technologies is one of the winners on the ITES II contract for IT enterprise solutions and so on.
One of the best ways to keep track of these PROGRAMS is through VAR Business and GovernmnetVAR along with you normal FedBizOpps and AFWAY bid sites. I have in the presentation several lists for 2009 and 2010 set aside programs and other small business contracts that you can be a part of today and tomorrow. There are sites that aggregate all the fedbizopps and state and local rfq, rfps and task orders, but it is really just a lazy was of doing FedBizOpps.
This “follow the money” strategy can be implemented over and over for government contracts and more importantly PROJECTS.
In this case we follow the Large System Integrators and how we might interact with them as our Customer and our entrée into major Federal Government Contracts.
Here I show 4 Federal System Integrators. Whether they are weapons manufacturers or Government “Research” agencies, these and many more companies are awarded government contracts on a daily basis.
For your company those contracts that emulate your success in the commercial world are the contracts to look for in the government market. These companies, and in particular the PROJECTs they win and are involved in are the contracts to learn about and pursue.
I have included above a Word document that lists contracts awarded in a two week time span for Sept 29 - Oct 10, 2008.
This list shows awarded contracts of over $1 Billion dollars.
Another Large Federal Contract is the DoD’s DISA contract.
I assisted in the development of the SSTEW program for Dynamic Systems which is a Pre-Bid, Pre-Approved Services vehicle for SUN MicroSystems warrantees and professional services.
This is a 10 year, exclusive, no-limit contract.
Dynamic Systems as a Federal partner for SUN competed and won SUN’s authorization as the sole provider of these services.
SUN provided Pre-Bid advantageous prices for this contract – now serviced through Dynamic Systems.
You can see you can replace SUN as the vendor with that vendor that really likes what your are doing and wants to support you. Tell them you are growing and focusing on you Public Safety Sector which includes, all Military branches, all government agencies, all state and local agencies and First Responders. A couple of key phases to think about in this market is “RUGGED” and “MOBILE”.
Another Federal Government contract is SEWP now in it’s fifth iteration.
Each contract is pre-solicited and awarded for 5 years.
What you see here are the awardees on SEWP IV.
You will see many Federal VAR’s and a few direct manufacturers. In this type of contract (more product based than systems based) one measure of success for a manufacturer is the number of sku’s on each VAR’s contract. The more sku’s the better the possibility of having a project manager find your product and purchase it.
Another point here is the fact that many times your are awarded based on certifications such as Veteran’s Owned, Minority owned (8A), or small business. Here Dell does not have those types of “set aside” certifications but they won the award also and would be interested in you if you had those certs.
This is pretty straight forward. Again, the 2009 list has many “push out” dates attached, meaning 2010 has become the defacto date for awards. Once awarded sales and marketing must attack the winner(s) with a reason to engage.
2009 Top 20 Programs by Agency. You have Navy, Air Force, DHS, Treasury, Defense, NASA and HHS. This are your major customers with whom you can subprime.
If you have certification that may be all they need. If you are in a remote location, Montana, Wyoming they may need you.
So sell to them and see what they possibly need that you can help out with.
Here we are talking about a couple of things.
Recompete contracts and consolidations that have carried over from 2008 but will go in 2009
Task Orders
Positioning yourself on more contract vehicles so that as competition and demand increases you will be in the right place at the right time.
You are a small business in IT and IT solutions if you have less than 500 people. Remember the government is thinking the Big Boys with thousands of people, particularly in the IT sector where so much competition resides.
But they have done something to level the playing field. SET-ASIDES and great sounding phrase that can help you if you position yourself to be in the game.
What you see here is NASA doing a Multi-Disciplinary Engineering and Technology Services buy using 8a SET ASIDE worth $500 million.
You see the Air Force NETCENTS II contract back out there for Small disadvantaged veterans with a $4.2 B price tag. Now are there enough SDVOB to take care of this requirement? NO. They need people like to you take pieces and projects and complete them as subprimes.
See notes of following slide for understanding about 2009 vs 2010 opportunites.
TOP 10 State and Local Justice and Public Safety & Homeland Security Opportunities in 2010. Each of these programs has experienced “push out” with the solicitation dates moving to 2010. Once the solicitation is awarded – usually another 3 months out – the winner(s) can be approached for subcontracting opportunities or IDIQ (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity) buys.
Lets look at Q1 because in all liklihood it hasn’t been awarded with the budget crisis and a new administration slowing down the dollars.
LA Cty, Ft Monmouth Cty in NJ and Washington States Wireless Broadband Expansion all have projects that are not going to be answered by one VAR or VENDOR. SubPrimes and Strategic partners are going to share in this project.
So be a Prime or be a Sub but be in the game!
Where do you go for Sales Leads and Opportunities. The best place to go in this economy is …..????
That’s right ….. “follow the money”. The government has all the money – our money – is spending via ARRA, aka: American Recovery Act or TARP money. You’ve heard about it now you can BE a part of it. Simply go to www.recovery.gov and see where the money is going. Look in your own neighborhood using the interactive map. The green dots are contracts, the blue dots are grants and the remaining dots are loans handed out or awarded by various Federal agencies including: DHS, DOT, DOJ, DOE, the Navy, NASA, NIH and more. Click on one of the dots.
Each dot will tell you everything you need to know – the Contract #, who won the deal, how much they were awarded, how much they have already received, how much they still have to spend, their address, their phone #, the contact person, their subcontractors and all the subcontractors information and how much they were awarded. It also shows the agency that awarded the money, the name of the project, a detailed discription of the project and lastly how many jobs were saved or created. Now that’s Information you can use!
This is the detail of the award to Dynamic Systems.
This portion of the detail shows that there were many subcontractors to this much larger award. This was awarded 5/22/09 by the DOE. Award # is shown. Order is show. The total award was for $60 million. So far $27 million in funds have been received and that there are 3 pages of Sub contractors.
This shows Dynamic Systems portion of the award including the award amount, the award date – 3/26/10 and address. With this information you can call on Dynamic Systems to see how you might help them or you can go on to another sub and see how to help them. The point here is FOLLOW THE MONEY.
