Competing for Business in the Government Sector

The federal contracting community has its own terminology that can seem like alphabet soup. Before your company can compete in this sector, you need to become familiar with acronyms such as RFPs (Requests for Proposals), SOWs (Statements of Work), BPAs (Blanket Purchase Agreements, IDIQ (Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity) and the FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulation) among many others.

It’s also critical to understand the contracting landscape and leverage the resources available to help contractors become successful. Two GSA sources that are worth investigating are the Vendor Support Center and their Interact website.

Other ways to gain insight into this sector are to subscribe to trade publications that cover the market. A few pubs that excel are Government Executive magazine, Government Computer News, and Federal Computer Week. They are a great way to keep abreast of hot topics such as policies, mandates and priorities that impact what government buys.

They also might be vehicles to create awareness of your firm and its offerings through advertising and press coverage. Just as in any competition, it’s the one that has prepared and is committed to success that will achieve their goal.