4. The Triangle: Client

While none of The Triangle areas are significantly more important than the others (tongue in cheek section M reference), The Client is listed first for a reason. Understanding the client’s needs, wants, buying behaviors, budget, etc have the potential to influence the competition, your approach, and the final outcome.

Also, the client is not a one dimensional entity. In Government contracting there are always at least 2 clients:

  • the entity with the money – Aliases include the requiring activity, the program/project office, the funding office, the post award Contracting Officer Representative (COR) (FAR subpart 1.604), Source Selection Authority (FAR subpart 15.303), sometimes abbreviate to ‘The Client’, etc. The bottom line is, this is the person, or persons, who have a need to fill (a requirement) and have the money. For this article we will refer to this entity as the Funding Office.
  • the entity with the authority to buy – Aliases include the Contracting Office(r) (CO) (FAR subpart 1.602), the contracting command, awarding agency, SSA, etc. They are trained in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), and if applicable the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation (DFAR). They also have all the tools and authorities to put out a requirement for bid. Those requirement documents include abbreviated titles such as Request for Quote (RFQ), Request for Proposal (RFP), Request for Information (RFI), Prototype Project Opportunity Notice (PPON), and many others. For this article we will refer to this entity as the Contracting Office.

Note that both explanations list them as a potential parties on the SSA. The SSA is the individual(s) who review the evaluators feedback and arrive at the final award decision. The Contracting Office is almost always on the SSA and it is possible Funding Office personnel may not be on the SSA at all.

The other very important thing to understand about the client is whether they prefer Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) or Best Value Tradeoff (BVT) (see our prior article on these concepts).

Now that you know the first key element, let us move on to the two overarching categories of client intelligence gathering techniques.

Quantitative

Government contracting is unique in that the quantity of data available is immense. This presents both an opportunity and a challenge, as one can get lost in a sea of data that can seem paralytic.

Before we get started however let’s cover some basics.

Primer on Federal Spend Data

It is important to understand some of the key data elements in the federal spending arsenal:

  • North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) – “It is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy.”
    • Hierarchy examples:
      • 54 Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
      • 541 Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
      • 5416 Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services
      • 54161 Management Consulting Services
      • 541611 Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services
  • Product and Service Codes (PSC) – “These product/service codes are used to record the products and services being purchased by the Federal Government. In many cases, a given contract/task order/purchase order will include more than one product and/or service. In such cases, the ‘Product or Service Code’ data element code should be selected based on the predominant product or service that is being purchased. For example, a contract for $1000 of lumber and $500 of pipe would be coded under 5510, ‘Lumber & Related Wood Materials.’
    • Hierarchy examples
      • Type:
        • Product – all digits
        • Research & Developer (R&D) – begins with an R
        • Service – begins with any letter other than R
      • R SUPPORT SVCS (PROF, ADMIN, MGMT)
      • R4 PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
      • R408 SUPPORT- PROFESSIONAL: PROGRAM MANAGEMENT/SUPPORT
  • NAICS/PSC summary
    • Pros – There is so much detail available in how or what the Government is spending money on that zero-ing in on the things you, and your competition, are doing is made a little bit easier.
    • Cons – The assignment of a PSC and NAICS for a contract is somewhat subjective, and only the predominant one is assigned. That means that if you filter based on just one NAICS you are guaranteed to miss adjacent data that is meaningful for the analysis we will discuss later. That is why it is best to use these as a black list, rather than a white list. For example, if the contract you are after is for non-R&D services then you can exclude all the NACIS and PSCs that deal with products and R&D. You can further filter out codes that are clearly not adjacent to what you do. With our two example codes, you can filter out S203 FOOD SERVICES and 23 Construction among many others since they have nothing to do with management consulting.
  • The Contracting client
    • Contracting Agency – top level organization, e.g. Department of Defense (DoD)
    • Contracting Sub Agency – next level down, e.g. Department of the Army
    • Contracting Office – lowest level, e.g. Army Contracting Command Aberdeen Proving Grounds (ACC APG) – this is the closest level of data to our opportunity so this is where we should focus, anything above this level becomes to far to generalized to be helpful
  • The Funding client
    • Funding Agency – top level organization, e.g. Department of Defense (DoD)
    • Funding Sub Agency – next level down, e.g. Department of the Army
    • Funding Office – lowest level, e.g. Redstone Arsenal – like the Contracting Office, this is the closest level of data to our opportunity so this is where we should focus
  • Contract Type – There are many different options available to the Government as covered in FAR part 16 but we point out three primary types:
    • Fixed Price
    • Time and Material
    • Cost Plus
  • Extent Competed – Generally two main types: competed or not competed (e.g. sole source)
  • Type of set aside – There are many of these but a few examples include:
    • 8(A) SOLE SOURCE
    • 8(A) WITH HUB ZONE PREFERENCE
    • 8A COMPETED
    • BUY INDIAN
    • EMERGING SMALL BUSINESS SET ASIDE
    • HUBZONE SET-ASIDE
    • NO SET ASIDE USED
    • SERVICE DISABLED VETERAN OWNED SMALL BUSINESS SET-ASIDE
    • SMALL BUSINESS SET ASIDE – TOTAL
    • VETERAN SET ASIDE
  • Number of Offers Received – exactly what it sounds like and indicates a count of bids received

Some familiarity with the above will help in the detailed analysis covered in the sections below.

Sources of Data

There is no single source of data that has it all, but with an understanding of what is available for what purpose you will know where to go for what intel. The next article (5. Competition) goes even deeper into sources of data to include the paid options, and will revisit some of these from a competition standpoint.

SourceDescriptionUse for
USA Spendingprimary source of Federal Government Spendingresearch an existing contract or various levels of spending aggregation and to see the raw data directly (very powerful data source)
System for Award Management (SAM)non-vehicle based acquisitions are posted here as are entity registrationsviewing solicitations
Service Contract Inventoryfederally mandated list of service contracts posted annuallyresearch on services spending when a delay in data availability is not a concern
IT Dashboardsee charts, information, and insights on Information Technology (IT) based spending.deep research into IT spending that in some cases goes into greater detail then that available on USA Spending
Interagency Contract Directorycontract vehicle dataresearching what contract vehicles are out there and who has them (note this is just repurposed federal spend data with filters applied to only show awarded vehicles)
GSA Portal DashboardGSA based contract vehicle spendresearching and visualizing GSA spend
Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFTA) Subaward Reporting System (FSRS)the system where all primes must report their spending on subcontractorsyou do not use this directly, the data is found in other systems, mainly USA Spending, but it is powerful data source covered more in next article

Let us begin with a list of possible quantitatively focused questions that we could, and probably should, look at for each pursuit.

What are the trends?

  • Is the FO spending going up, down, or stagnant over time (the Contracting Office spend is somewhat irrelevant unless you happen to be pursuing work funding by the CO whereby the funding and contracting office are the same).
  • Does the FO use certain COs for specific NAICS/PSCs?
  • Does the GO use certain Contracting Officers for specific NAICS/PSCs?
  • Is the FO moving towards or away from certain NAICS/PSCs?
  • Is the FO office and/or the CO moving towards or away from certain competitions types.
  • Same question as above but for contract types

Is it a competitive space?

  • How many offerors do their contracts receive? Do they get 1 or 2, or dozens?
  • Do they use a lot of set-asides?
  • Do they use specific set-asides?

Qualitative

Not everything can or will be learned through data in a system. Someone has to speak to, and meet with, the client. This includes not just the Funding Office (as is usually the default approach), but also the Contracting Office. The Contracting Office has as much sway as the Funding Office is willing to allow them to have, and if you do not get to know both entities you could be in for a rude awakening come proposal and post award time.

  • Agency strategic plans – where is that agency headed, what key technologies, approaches, or directions are they telegraphing that may trickle down to your client
  • Agency Budgets Requests – this is the overall budget, best found by google-ing ‘budget request’ or ‘president’s budget’ and your desired agency
  • Contract forecasts – these are scattered by agency and sometimes focused on small business opportunities but show planned upcoming contract opportunities, generally just google your agency name and ‘contract forecast’, also locate your contracting command on SAM and subscribe to any opportunities they have that post periodic contract forecast documents

Now that we have all this background information it is time to meet with the client. A list of reasonable questions to ask the client may include:

  • Where/what are your pain points/challenges?
  • What does your acquisition timeline look like?
  • Is this a new requirement or an existing one (said more bluntly, is there an incumbent)?
  • What is the maturity level of your requirements?
  • Will there be a bidders conference?
  • Will there be a Request for Information (RFI) and when?
  • Will there be a Request for Quote (RFQ) and when?
  • Is this likely to be a full and open competition or one set aside for some socioeconomic class (e.g. small business)
  • And many others

When you research quantitatively before you meet with the client, you will already have an idea of what some of the answers might be. That knowledge will lead to probing questions if your data doesn’t jive with what the client is saying.

As a final note, beware of Federal Government Business Development types (these are Government employees). They are usually the person leading/managing a fee-for-service Contract Vehicle and their goal is to: 1) drive up bidders; 2) have as many qualified vendors on their vehicle; and 3) increase access to subcontractors. Those goals are not necessarily bad, but they could enthusiastically encourage your company to bid on work you otherwise may not have a high pWin on. Sniff those out and make a pursuit decision cognizant of that fact.

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