If you’ve taken any sort of business course, you’ve likely heard of Michael Porter’s five forces analysis on competition within an industry. These forces represent the competitive nature and profitability of an industry as a whole – taking into account all influencing factors. The power of buyers and suppliers and threats of new entrants or…
Managing market intelligence is a challenge for every business. We’re constantly assaulted with seemingly endless streams of data. We love data. However, we love making sense out of that data more. Better yet, we adore simple visuals and references to enable us to work through the more important task of using such data as meaningful…
In our line of work, we see a lot of bad market research disguised as market intelligence. The sneaky thing about bad market research is that, on the surface, it looks good. It looks accurate. They include pretty charts and precise growth rates. They reference international issues shaping domestic market trends. Maybe they talk about…
As competitive intelligence (CI) analysts, we’re almost always trying to find the answer to a question regarding some aspect of a major GOVCON business. While we rarely ever can answer the question definitively, we can usually provide likely answers and explanations based on available information. Whether or not you’re a CI analyst, this can be…
8(a) contractors on the Chief Information Officer – Solutions and Partners 3 (CIO-SP3) IDIQ have a promising opportunity with the Department of State (DOS) coming up in the not-too-distant future (DOS? On a Health IT vehicle? You heard correctly). The Development, Engineering, and Integration Services (DEIS) contract, currently being performed by ActioNet, supports DOS’ Bureau…
In July 2014, Attain was awarded a five-year, $50.2 million CIO-SP3 task order to provide bioinformatics and related support for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Cancer Institute (NCI). This task order was awarded as a small business set-aside and will end (assuming that there are no extensions) in July 2019. This means that…
In a previous blog posting, we discussed some of the key questions and priorities to keep in mind when qualifying (or disqualifying) a new lead as a real opportunity. Let’s expand on those basics, digging a little further into the What and How. When making pursuit decisions, knowledge is power. And so is consistency. New…
Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of business development! Ah yes, we now have the first batch of CIO-SP3 small business on-ramps with the batch of 40+ SDVOSB awards. Congratulations to the winners! These awardees have a fantastic and versatile contract vehicle to leverage. But a win begs the question: What do you do…
When we last blogged on ACES, we focused on the basics of what ACES is. No doubt you’ve spent quality time reviewing our blog and a plethora of USAID materials to either get smart on ACES or to simply revisit your long-lost friend of an opportunity (remember DRAGON? We do!). The intention of this blog…
Federal business development veterans know all too well about the importance of a solid business development process. We’ve endured the countless classes, seminars, Kumbaya sessions heralding the necessity for 100+ steps from the time an opportunity is a twinkling in your eye until you get a confirmation of a win or the agonizing notice of…
