WAIT FOR FOURTH QUARTER AND MISS OUT ON BUSINESS NOW
So much hype surrounds the end of the federal fiscal year that contractors could be forgiven for thinking that they could spend the rest of the year at the beach. It turns out, though, that there is real business being done right now. The Air Force made two large awards this week on significant tech systems that together top $500 million in spending. The VA is moving quickly on its T4NG 2 contract that will have a ceiling of $60 billion, three times larger than the current contract. Smaller awards on innovative projects have been made by Energy and DHS. Contractors waiting for tomorrow should understand that tomorrow is today. The pace of business will also accelerate over the coming weeks as more and more individual offices get their FY’23 spending numbers from OMB. Successful contractors should have short, medium, and long-term horizons for business in their pipeline. What are agencies buying? In addition to a wide array of services, popular technology areas continue to be AI, cyber, and cloud solutions. A quick look at Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) information shows that DOD spending on AI has grown about 55% since FY’19 and is now consistently a billion-dollar annual market in just that agency alone. The cyber market is even larger, with DOD spending growing over a billion and a half dollars since FY’19 to over $4.6 billion last year. Total federal spending on “cloud” projects exceeded $2.5 billion in FY’22. The federal government is open for business, a situation that no one should take for granted. Make sure your company is pursuing opportunities for both today and in the months to come.