In the government contracting space, knowledge is power. And the businesses that know how to gather and use that knowledge are in the best position to win government business.

"The companies that have the best information and tools, and know how to use them are the most successful," Deniece Peterson, INPUT Manager of Industry Analysis, said at today's Improve Win Rates with CRM webinar hosted by GovWin. Joseph Dominguez, director of business development operations at NCI Information Systems, joined Peterson on the panel to discuss how to turn changes in the industry into success.

In a world of increased competition and faster expected proposal turnaround times, superior business intelligence stands as a critical driver to increase government contract win rates. According to Peterson, it really comes down to understanding your client's wants and needs before you bid.

"Companies must get a deep, yet broad understanding of their customers and the magnitude of the agency's scope and issues," she said. Only then can a company properly evaluate the task order and make informed decisions as to whether or not they offer the best solution.

Dominguez agreed. He said NCI uses several integrated tools, including INPUT research and Deltek's Costpoint Customer Relationship Management system, to help manage the entire business development process from cradle to grave.

Dominguez said NCI has created an orchestrated approach to customer information management. "Companies should integrate everything they learn about their customer at every phase of the business development cycle," he said.

Once you put all that information together, you get a very broad understanding of what is happening in the customer environment and that allows you to make key bid or no-bid decisions earlier in the process.

"Our ability to use our tools to capture that information as early as possible helps our management team evaluate opportunities earlier in the procurement life cycle," he said. "It enables us to prioritize and put resources against the contracts where we have the best probability of winning."

Peterson affirmed that sometimes saying "no" to bidding on a contract is the best course of action, but it requires solid business intelligence to make that call.

Other key trends that may affect the business development cycle include:

• Contractors should expect to see a continuation of the government's recent move toward consolidating big contracts into smaller, modular multi-agency task order contracts (MATOCs). This is creating a "win-or-die" environment among contractors and sets the stage for "protest-to-win" strategies of winning business.
• Most new opportunities in the government are coming from recompetes, so companies must make effective and efficient proposals on an even faster turnaround time. (Peterson cited a statistic: based on a sample of 8,500 recent task order announcements, 70 percent included a response time that was less than seven days.) Additionally, companies must know and be able to articulate their key differentiators in order to draw business away from incumbents.
• With the government's push toward more open collaboration between government and industry, government contractors have even more opportunities to influence contracts. Companies should plan to leverage any opportunity to collaborate and communicate with government agencies.

Dominguez summed up the importance of effectively using tools and managing knowledge in the business development cycle by closing with the fact that his company has seen a four-percent improvement in win rates. This translates to "an additional $400,000 per year in closed business for every $10 million pursued. That's a pretty impressive bottom line."

Click to view webinar.