Blog Post
Laser-Focused Small Businesses Stand to Reap Rewards
Small businesses with laser-focused expertise and an awareness of their ethical responsibilities are the most desired among Primes, said the panel of experts at GovWin.com's Executive Roundtable webinar, the first of an ongoing series.
[Editor's Note: A PDF of the webinar presentation is available for download. A replay of the webinar can be viewed below.]
In this environment of strict compliance requirements and the need for businesses to serve their agencies "faster, cheaper, better," business owners who can remove some of the guesswork and solve for deficiencies will rise to the top.
"As a small business, you need to be laser focused. Be very, very good at the one or two things you are experts at; don't try to be all things to all people," J. (Jay) Richard Jones, Vice President Government Solutions, Siemens Enterprise Communications, Inc., said.
Kate Fortney, Vice President, Federal Solutions Business Development for ACS agreed. "It's not just about your technical competency -- it's more about the relationships you build and the agencies you know," she said. "People buy from people. The federal government is the same as anyone else."
The Four Critical Qualities for Small Businesses
The panel, which also included Deltek's Rich Wilkinson, Vice President of Government Contract Marketing and Jeff White, Vice President and Founder of GovWin.com, unanimously agreed that Primes looking to team find small businesses most valuable when they possess four critical qualities:
- Pre-existing relationships
- Past performance
- Technical competency
- Ability to be agile and flexible
"When I sit down with a small business, too often they want to focus on their solution. What I really want to know is: Do you have past performance to make our bid stronger? Do you fill a need we don't have or do you have relationships?" Kate Fortney said. "How will you help me win?"
Rich Wilkinson agreed, "That's what it's all about! Fill a need that I don't have."
Both Kate Fortney and Jay Jones echoed the message of Lockheed Martin's Bob Gemmill, who said in a recent Prime Teaming Suggestions Seminar that most Primes are looking to small businesses to help increase their probability of win. Those businesses who can do that are the most attractive when Primes have to respond quickly to procurement requests.
The panel's advice: Know your expertise, take the time to build relationships, and use your technical competency for innovative solutions.
"Don't be creating a mouse trap if it's rats you need to trap. [Rats are] too big and they won't fit. It just won't work." Jones said.
The Compliance Question
The panel also discussed the new environment of ethics, audits and compliance scrutiny that all contractors, big or small, are dealing with. Again, unanimously, they agreed that small businesses who are aware of their own responsibilities to be compliant will be the most attractive.
Jay Jones explained that Primes have always lived under the rigors of the auditing agencies. "It hasn't changed for large businesses. I've always had to deal with this. I live in a world of paranoia to ensure that everything we do is perfect." The difference now is that small businesses need to have that same paranoia.
"I know my small business partners feel the scrutiny that I feel. I have to make sure that they don't do something that I'll be responsible for down the line," Jones said. "We are in a very compliant and ethical environment. It's more visible now and small business must understand their responsibility in this.
Rich Wilkinson added that the recent logjam at the Defense Contract Auditing Agency (DCAA) hasn't helped.
"Small businesses know the DCAA is understaffed and know they probably can fly below the radar for a while. That is a trap; eventually it'll catch up with them. It might not be the DCAA, it might be your Prime that catches you. It's tempting to do it, but it's really dangerous," Wilkinson said.
Other Highlights
Kate Fortney on getting past performance credentials:
"You do need to specialize either around a function or an agency," she said. "If it were me, I'd figure out the one or two agencies who really need what I have and I'd build my business there and then expand later."
Kate Fortney, Vice President, Federal Solutions Business Development, ACS, A Xerox Company and GovWin founder Jeff White.
On innovation and its relationship to budget cuts:
If the federal government cuts employees, they may be able to bring in government contractors for a better price. So the question becomes, "can we consolidate programs of a like nature? It opens up their aperture to do things differently," Fortney said. "A lot of the innovations come from small businesses. They have the bright idea about how to do things differently."
Jones added, "It's on us to be very specific about the innovations we bring to the table.... We need to partner wisely and bring solutions to the government that'll save them money."
On the push toward cloud solutions:
On this point, the panelists disagreed. Jay Jones said he believes the cloud is the future of procurement asks. Kate Fortney was more reserved in her analysis of the recent push toward cloud-based solutions, despite the OMB's emphasis on cloud-first policies.
"I would be surprised to see a whole lot of procurements come out soon. You won't see every agency putting out an RFP for cloud in the next 12 months. You'll see a lot of planning and consolidation of services as a migration toward cloud, but we're not betting the farm on it right now," she said.
[For more on cloud computing, join us on Feb. 16 for our next Executive Roundtable webinar on cloud computing.]
To ask a question of the panel, or to continue the conversation, please participate in our Q&A Forum.
Discussion
Poll: If you could only choose one, what is the most important driver for your business in 2011?
Did companies shift in 2010 to focus on opportunities in healthcare? Did your company?
Is your company engaged in efforts to drive cloud initiatives?
Is there expected to be much difference between Gates' DoD cuts and the Republicans
