Prepare, aware, and declare: Three simple words but also the three key execution imperatives for this year’s Federal IT buying season.
All signs point to extremely strong opportunity and purchasing volumes this buying season; this is unprecedented when compared to the last three Federal fiscal year ends.
Federal agencies have their budgets in place; they have aging technology and service models that desperately need upgrading. They’ve also had time to plan their purchases proactively versus the haphazard, uneven purchasing trends that we saw in the previous three years.
All of these factors provide great opportunity for our partners. That opportunity will only be realized for its fullest potential if companies are committed to executing against their market competitors.
Hence, our big three key execution imperatives:
Be Prepared:
Staffing models must be adjusted, support resources must be aligned with higher quoting volumes, and expanded service hours must be put in place.
Sales inspection metrics need to be adjusted to include the number of daily quotes in addition to the contact information for key buyers that need to be reached. Sales inertia and efforts should be at a rapid crescendo between now and the end of September.
This takes a combined and cohesive effort between sales, marketing, and sales operations. It also requires careful coordination with your vendor partners and suppliers. Ultimately, the more cohesively your operating model flexes in support of the incremental market opportunity, the more successful you will be this buying season.
Awareness Campaigns:
Visibility with key buyers as well as the constituents they support is absolutely critical. This is the one time each year that contracting officers move with urgency and quoting volumes that can lead to awards happening at a rapid pace.
Similarly, we have seen estimates indicating that as high as 72% of allocated available budgets for Federal IT will be spent this September. With this in mind, call campaigns in coordination with email campaigns rigorously inspected daily by sales leadership are critical to creating meaningful awareness among Federal contracting officers. The more visible your company is, the more successful you will be in this critical time.
Declare Your Unique Value:
Your buying season awareness campaigns should be steeped with the unique business value you offer a contracting officer. Rapid service intervals for returned quotes, depth of your technology line card, technical resources available to scrub RFQs as appropriate, and extended sales hours are all great things for our partners to convey as unique value offerings. Contracting Officers need to be confident in your resource models and your ability to be responsive to all RFQs in a compliant manner.
The Bottom Line: Instill complete confidence with the CO and you will get the most opportunity to win RFQs this buying season.
Prepare, Aware, Declare…and WIN!!
