YOUR FEDERAL CUSTOMER WANTS MORE THAN AN RFP RESPONSE

If you’ve been listening to your federal customer or reading the trade press lately, one common theme has become increasingly clear:  Federal leaders want contractors to be at least somewhat pro-active in recommending solutions.  This is especially true when it comes to helping agencies connect dots that, while they’re obvious to industry, may not be so to spread out government organizations.  Increasingly, it’s not enough for contractors to wait for government agencies to identify needs on their own and then post an RFP to which contractors can respond.  Paul Morris, acting CIO at TSA gave an example of this at a recent conference when he stated, “The vendors need to come up with an open solution that talks well with everything else that I can come up with, a secure data layer that I can then make rapid decisions…”.  These comments echo other recent statements made by DOD leaders who chastised established contractors for being too reactive and not pro-active.  While feds are noted to be more conservative than their commercial counterparts that obviously does not equate to them being totally unopen to innovation.