The Government Contracting industry is experiencing a boom, as the government looks to fill contracts while balancing the introduction of both new and revised regulations. However, not all contractors are prepared to take advantage of the influx of opportunities to be found. Many contractors are still using spreadsheets and software platforms, which may help them gather information but fall short in filtering and integrating the data to make sound decisions in bidding and procuring contracts. To maintain your place in the contracting market—or even improve your success—it is crucial that you have created a system within your company which contains with the right arsenal in order to win bids.
Historically, working with the government in just about any contracting capacity was inefficient and painfully slow. The need for compliance overrules many methods for speeding up the process, and with many facets and agencies involved in a single project, it is difficult to gather data from multiple locations and make sense of it. To make matters worse, data quality is compromised the more times it is transferred from one spreadsheet or program to another.
Even with online search capabilities rapidly improving, finding the right teaming partner and subcontractors is cumbersome. Spreadsheets are complicated, containing an exorbitant amount of information on candidates, and organized in a way that they are nearly a single-use product, forcing bidders to repeat the process with every opportunity. Contractors, at times overwhelmed by the sheer number of possible bidding opportunities, struggle to qualify opportunities, and determine which have the best chances of winning and spend countless man-hours recreating information repeatedly.
It is crucial to step back and take a critical look at your team. How aligned is your team in its approach, from how integrated your organization is to the processes (and accompanying tools) you utilize in the search for a partner, qualify opportunities, prepare bid proposals, and create and execute contracts in a timely manner. Ask yourself some of the following questions about your team:
Managing your bidding efforts requires the work of an entire team, and in most cases, multiple teams. This, however, is one area where contractors fall short. Email is not always the most useful method of communication. When you have multiple organizations providing input into bids and contracts, it can be problematic to create a single contract that covers all aspects and individual organization responsibilities with so many “cooks in the kitchen.” When evaluating your team, ask the following questions:
There have been thousands of platforms developed to help companies manage their pipelines, but how many truly understand the government bidding process? You may have a CRM that stores data, but does it allow you to sift through the numbers of appropriate filters? When assessing your pipeline management method, consider the following:
The bidding process is often the most time-consuming aspect of a government contractor’s journey to contract success. With a vast surplus of contracts available, it would be easy to adopt an approach of bidding for everything that looks remotely attractive. However, is this the most efficient way to win bids? Instead of wasting time and money bidding indiscriminately, look at the following:
If you determine that your organization is not prepared for the exponential growth which the government contracting industry is experiencing, it is not too late to adopt some improvements. A solution like OneTeam could be the answer, without draining additional resources.
OneTeam helps you to qualify prospective partners based on unique features for your potential bid, offers a qualification matrix which enables you to sort through potential opportunities based on your expertise, capabilities, and history, and provides you with online access to hundreds of teaming partners from the GovWin website. Once you have created a teaming partnership, the platform includes options for you to communicate with potential partners in one location, combined with transparency in proposal writing and collaboration with teaming members.
To learn more about the OneTeam software and discover more tools to help your search, bidding, and proposal writing succeed, contact us. Our videos exhibit some of the features OneTeam includes, and we would be happy to demo our platform for you. Find out why pipeline management software like OneTeam can mean the difference between spinning your wheels and winning your ideal government bids!