To be successful in federal contracting, the company must be able get enough information that will lead to better decision making and the successful allocation of company resources. The following questions must be answered before a company can be successful in federal contracting:
1. Does the federal government buy my company’s products/services?
• How much did the federal government spend and will spend in the near future?
• What contracting methods are used?
• How much money did the company’s competitors make with federal contracts?
2. Who (agency contracting office) buys my company’s products/services?
• Who are the program/department managers who need the company’s products/services?
• Is the company doing business in the city where the agency contracting office is located?
• Who are the agency contracting officers?
• Who else in the agency contracting office can help my company sale its products/services?
3. Is the company ready to do federal contracting?
• Does the company have the financing to complete a federal contract?
• Is the company aware the federal contracting regulations?
• Does the company have a government accounting system?
• Does the company have experienced (federal contracts) personnel?
The Federal Contract Intelligence Service will help your company answer these questions and many more. Our products are designed to position your company within a targeted agency contracting office in order to identify procurement requirements and present your solutions before they become contract opportunities for public bidding. Our products comply with the rules and regulations in the Federal Acquisition Regulations and the Code of Federal Regulations.
Federal Contract Intelligence Service specializes in producing actionable reports for businesses wanting to do business with the United States Government (USG). In fiscal year 2010, the USG purchased over $432b in goods and services from commercial entities. Our reports help companies answer the following questions:
- How much money did the USG spend purchasing the company’s products/services from its competitors?
- What contracting methods did the federal agencies used to make the purchases?
- Who (agency contracting office) contracted the purchases?
Our reports are used in the company’s marketing plan. Our reports allow the company to position itself in front of decision makers in agency contracting offices and their stakeholders before a requirement becomes an open bid solicitation. See Standard Report Pricing.
Federal Contract Intelligence Service utilizes state of art data mining software and as access to data sets from Data.gov, the Atom feed from the Federal Procurement Data System, and other fee based subscription services. Our data mining capability includes:
- Identifying predetermined groups. For example, a company could mine agency procurement data to determine the type of contracts used to purchase their goods or services. This information could be used to determine if the company should get a contract vehicle. The contract vehicles could include GSA Schedules, Government Wide Acquisition Contracts or many other “Interagency Contracts. Please see blog “Interagency Contracting”
- Identifying logical relationships or contracting preferences. For example, USG contracting data can be mined to identify set aside contracts for socio economic groups and the contracting officers that favor this form of procurement. Small business with this status can market directly to these contracting officers.
- Identifying associations. For example, USG contracting data can be mined to see if certain contracting vehicles are used more that others to purchase computer hardware.
Anticipate behavior patterns and trends. For example, a manufacture of military weaponry can mined contract history and correlate with geo political events to plan raw material purchases and production schedules.
The federal government fiscal year begins October 1 and ends September 30. The process starts with the agencies submitting estimates to the Office of Management and Budget and the President submits the final budget to Congress for final approval. Beginning October 1, agencies incur the obligations and make outlays to carry out the funded programs, projects and activities. The last quarter of the fiscal year federal agencies adopt the “Use it or lose it” attitude. Agencies enter into an accelerated buying process.
In fiscal year 2010, the federal government purchased over $432b in goods and services from commercial entities. Small Business accounted for 22.65% or $97, 946,784,160.69 of all federal purchases. The socio economic designated purchases included Small Disadvantage Business 7.95%, SBA 8(a) contractors 4.27%, Veteran Owned Small Business 4.30%, Service Disable Veteran Own Small Business 2.49%, Women Own Business 4.03% and HUBZone 2.76%.