In my last newsletter, I shared some predictions about where I see the government contracting industry headed in the 2012 fiscal year. Last Thursday (sep. 8, 2011), I attended SECAF’s Opportunity Landscape for Government briefing and heard Kevin Plexico, Senior Vice President of Research and Analysis from INPUT, and Paul Murphy, Senior Data Analyst from Bloomberg share their data about what the new fiscal year will bring. It was a highly informative session, so I took some notes to share with you a few points they made.

Now that we have a national debt level that we haven’t seen since World War II, there will definitely be further reductions in discretionary spending in FY 2012. Murphy quoted Admiral Mike Mullen, who said, “I think the biggest threat we have to our national security is our debt.” No one knows exactly what the reductions will be – it is still being worked out in Congress, but the President’s budget is pretty much DOA. A majority of the cuts will likely affect the war effort, as well as science, NASA, agriculture, financial services, interior and environment, and justice.

The government is not used to decreases – they are used to increases. Plus, with all the uncertainty, they don’t know where the cuts will come from and how deep they will be. This might lead to some holding patterns with select procurements.

But with that said, there will be some strategic growth opportunities. In the energy R&D sector, there will be still initiatives to get away from foreign oil. There will be building infrastructure investments to drive energy conservation.

In the healthcare field, there will be projects around cost-reducing measures such as further implementation of electronic health records and modernizing of healthcare systems, expansion of government health care programs, and associated monitoring of these programs to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse. Veterans Affairs and military heath programs have been growing in double digits. So have construction and health IT investment.

Cyber, of course, will continue to expand. There may be more centralized management and real-time cyber monitoring (rather than FISMA paperwork-based security). In the field of IT, there will be further consolidation, performance improvements, and cloud-related projects.

The lion’s share of the government budget will still go to the military. For example, the Army will hold the S3 re-compete of professional services – and it is a huge contract.
There is more opportunity for small businesses; the share of small business set-asides has been steadily growing, even if the contracting dollars have shrunk. Agencies such as the VA, DHS, HHS, USDA, and DOE are actively courting small businesses. In the greater Washington area, there is seven times more SB spending than in any other U.S. metro area. Almost agency-wide, the government has not achieved yet its procurement goals for WOSBs, HubZone, and SDVOSBs.

Overall, there will be less money to go around, so the field will be more competitive. Incumbent deals will be highly contested, so no one should rest on their laurels.

In light of the changing marketplace, OST is offering a full slate of training events to help keep you competitive. Our September IDIQs and Task Orders class is now completely sold out 10 days before the class. Given the demand, we will run this class again in November. Our next classes are coming up October 2-5 in Rockville, MD – we have early bird pricing for October classes until Tuesday, Sept 20: 

• Oct. 3           Cost Proposal Strategy for Proposal Managers
• Oct. 4-5        Proposal Management: How to Write Less and Win More
• Oct. 6-7        Capture Management: How to Position to Win Before an RFP Issuance
• Oct. 19         Introduction to Federal Business Development
• Oct. 20-21    How to Develop and Coach Winning Oral Proposals
• Nov. 11-12   Preparing Winning Multiple Award and Task Order Proposals
• Nov. 15-16   Proposal Speed-Writing Workshop: Writing Better Proposal Sections in Half the Time
• Nov. 17-18   Proposal Solution Development: Win Themes, Management, Risk, Past Performance, Resumes, Technical Volumes

More details and registration information for these classes can be found at www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/schedule

P.S. We will also hold a breakfast briefing together with the PilieroMazza Law Firm on Developing a Winning Capture Strategy and Avoiding Legal Pitfalls (Nov. 3, 2011). For details please go to http://www.pmplawfirm.com/events/show-event/53#event_53.

… PROPOSAL support: If you are short-staffed, your proposal load is heavy, or you don’t have the right skills in-house, we can get you the right help. Please contact Ben Goessling for your proposal development needs at 301-384-3350, or send us an inquiry at service@ostglobalsolutions.com.

… BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT support: Outsource your business development to our experts and find government contracting opportunities in your core competency areas. Contact Alex Brown at 301-384-3350, or send u s an inquiry at service@ostglobalsolutions.com.

OST Global Solutions, Inc.
Your resource for Capture and Proposal Management
...Because there is no second place in proposals!
+1 (301) 384-3350
www.ostglobalsolutions.com
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