Sourcing Federal Business Opportunities in Salesforce
Federal business opportunities exist for every kind of product or service you can think of, from paper clips to aircraft carriers and catering to construction. The government signs more than 11 million contracts each year, yet right now less than 5% of all companies do business with the U.S. government.
If government contracts and sales are such a huge market opportunity, why are so few companies pursuing them?
Most times, it’s because they just don’t know they exist. Fortunately, the landscape has evolved in the government contract world over the past decade and today, any company can easily access available opportunities if they know where to look.
The Federal Business Opportunity Landscape
The federal market is massive and growing. In 2020, it reached $681 billion in contract spending, the highest amount on record. Federal contract spending has seen a 43% increase over the past five years and is expected to keep growing.
Defense continues to make up the largest portion of federal government spending (65% in 2020), but the government is contracting with a wide range of industries. Some of the fastest growing include IT, medical, professional services, and research and development.
Today, there are opportunities for companies of all sizes in every industry to work with the federal government.
Finding Federal Business Opportunities
Companies pursuing the millions of contracts signed by the government each year face common challenges addressing the vast market, identifying the procurement priorities of various government agencies, and gaining insight into which federal contract opportunities they can pursue.
The government has made great strides in the methods they use to help companies find new business opportunities in the federal market. Gone are the days of printed materials listing opportunity details; now, there are numerous free and paid-access solutions that give companies the information they need to pursue federal contracts.
- Google — This one’s simple but effective. Google “doing business with” paired with the agency or department of your choice (e.g. EPA, OPM, Office of Veterans Affairs, DOE). You’ll find results that give you direct information about agency spending priorities (near- and long-term), their active contracts, past spending analysis, and resources for finding opportunities with that agency.
Example: we Googled “doing business with the EPA” and the top result was “Contracting with the EPA.” Their site offered tons of easily-accessible resources.
- GovIQ by Deltek – GovIQ is an online market research database that provides news, analysis, market research, access to opportunities, and a comprehensive library of past and active government contracts dating back decades.
- Bloomberg Government – Like GovIQ, Bloomberg Government provides access to news, opportunity insights, market research and analysis, and other resources. Also like GovIQ, a paid membership is required for access.
Federal agencies also share opportunities directly on Sam.gov, the government’s own site and thus the real “source of truth” for federal opportunities. The website was launched as part of the U.S. government’s efforts to increase transparency and bring together contractors looking for opportunities to work with the government and agencies who need their support.
Sam.gov enables users to search federal business opportunities across agencies. The site includes access to data analysis and reports to help you conduct market research, access agency hierarchies and locations, and find information on the contract opportunities themselves.
This intelligence can help you determine not only who to sell to, but who you should partner with to bring complementary capabilities to the pursuit of government opportunities.
Sourcing Federal Business Opportunities in Salesforce
All of the aforementioned sources can be integrated with Salesforce to provide push-button importing of government opportunities. Rainmaker has developed the Sam.gov Opportunity Finder for Salesforce, a free plugin that enables you to search, import, and sync government opportunities found in the Sam.gov database.
Key features and capabilities include:
- Search based on more than 30 different criteria and view them directly in SFDC.
- Imports contract opportunities into SFDC as either Leads or Opportunities to begin your business development strategy and planning.
- Configures the solution to meet your needs by by selecting fields to search and sync.
- Periodically syncs opportunity data from Sam.gov into the opportunity to ensure it’s up to date.
If you’re a government contractor using Salesforce Sales Cloud with limited customization, Rainmaker can also help you deploy functionality that’s tailored to your business using our GovCon Framework.
This tool is being honed and perfected for over 40 government contractors, including some of the biggest names in the industry. It can be deployed in under 60 days for most small to mid-size government contractors.
Getting Started
Most companies miss out on opportunities to work with the federal government simply because they don’t know that the opportunities exist or they’re unsure of how to access them.
Today’s digital world has helped the government get more connected than ever with companies of all sizes who can provide services they need. Using available tools, any company can start pursuing federal contract opportunities right away, and for Salesforce users it’s easier than ever with the Sam.gov Opportunity Finder.
