The Power of Strategic Teaming: Gain a Holistic View of Subcontracting with GovWin IQ

Subcontracting is on the Rise

The federal contracting space is ever-evolving, but one constant is that relationships are a viable option for growth. With category management leading to contract consolidation, fewer and fewer prime opportunities are available, making every opportunity more competitive than ever. This is leading more contractors to explore teaming agreements as a viable option for growth.

However, teaming has challenges such as finding strategic partners with the right capabilities, past experience with an agency, certain set-aside certifications or simply finding partners you can trust. That's why adequate research is important before engaging in a formal teaming arrangement.

What Makes a Strategic Partnership?

A strategic partnership delivers value to both companies and often goes beyond filling capability gaps to include experience with an agency and a good track record of successful projects. Primes and subcontractors should look for teaming partners who can provide services or technology they do not offer or demonstrate past performance with an agency.

Teaming exists to fill gaps in capabilities or meet contract qualifications such as set-aside or compliance certifications. This is where companies can craft a compelling narrative for their proposal that can differentiate their partnership. This means understanding the competitive landscape beyond who is the prime on a contract they’re pursuing to include who the main subs are and how your partnership will be differentiated for the agency's benefit.

Past performance is one of the most important elements when researching potential partners whether it be in terms of the work being done or experience with the agency the contract is for. Historical experience providing the necessary products or services displays maturity and trust. For example, seeing a sub continually used instead of intermittent awards can signal proficient fulfillment. Subs looking to eventually prime often gain experience this way before making that leap.

Familiarity with an agency is another key element of a strategic partnership. This is because of relationships built when delivering the project and the security in selecting a trusted vendor already doing the work. With most opportunities as recompetes, primes should look at subs already on a contract to team in pursuit of an upcoming opportunity.

Why a Holistic View of the Subcontracting Market Matters

The most strategic companies leverage historical data to inform future decisions, and that’s why GovWin IQ never deletes public records from our database—including subcontracting opportunities, awards, and documents. This award data can be used to identify upcoming opportunities and the current environment of the work being performed, such as how long the current team has been in place, who is winning the most business, and perhaps most importantly, the competitive landscape.

In understanding the current teaming landscape, contractors can glean insights to help them make the best decisions for their business and position themselves the most strategically they can. For example, with visibility into the broader market from a historical and proactive view, contractors can identify weak partnerships, such as only relying on one sub. This could be a weakness in the current state of project delivery with all eggs in one basket versus a teaming architecture consisting of subs that can parse the work out often delivering a stronger project dynamic.

Additionally, the public sector is unique in that a competitor on one opportunity can be a great teaming partner on another. Both scenarios are enhanced with visibility into the work a company is fulfilling, their experience with agencies, the distribution of their work, and set-asides or certifications that may impact teaming assessments when pursuing new business.

GovWin IQ Delivers Actionable Subcontracting Insights

Our team knows how important it is to make informed go-to-market decisions regarding teaming. GovWin IQ helps users cultivate strategic partnerships focused on differentiated capabilities and compatibility while providing an informed way to allow users to send a warm lead inquiring about an opportunity they know they are interested in pursuing.

Our latest enhancements will deliver deep insights into companies working in the public sector to help users define their competitive landscape to successfully differentiate, research potential teaming partners to fill gaps or gain access to an agency, and plan strategically when pursuing teaming opportunities so they can diversify and grow their business.

We're serving up this data in various ways throughout GovWin IQ to allow users to slice and dice the data for their unique needs while supporting them in their relationship management and strategic planning efforts.

Actionable Sub-Award Data in GovWin IQ

GovWin IQ is dedicated to supporting our users with actionable insights for their business no matter if that means primarily priming, subbing, or a healthy mix of both. Users can explore sub-award data throughout GovWin IQ in the following places with the ability to export key details to Excel and instantly remove duplicates:

Analyst-Tracked Opportunities: Unpack prime and sub awards by year, agency, company, PoP, socioeconomic status, NAICS (sub only), Smart Tag (sub only), budget sources history and Deltek forecast (prime only)

Review subcontract awards associated with a federal opportunity

Contracts: Review subcontracting awards by fiscal year, sub-socioeconomic status, place of performance, buying organization, and Smart Tag

Find subcontract awards associated with a contract

Task Orders: Unpack subcontracting awards by subcontractor, fiscal year, socioeconomic status, PoP and Smart Tag.

Find subcontract awards associated with a task order

Company Profiles: Breakdown prime obligations, awards to subs, and sub awards by company with views that will arm you with spending insights such as customer, category, NAICS, PSC, PoP, contract, set-aside, Task Order, Analysis, OTA and more.

Find subcontract awards issued by a prime contractor or review work as a sub

Cut Through the Noise with GovWin IQ’s IntelliSearch

With this holistic view into sub-awards, we’re arming users with an easy way to search for companies that fit certain criteria. Whether looking for a specific subcontractor, socioeconomic certification, mentor or protégé relationships, or reported prime or subcontracting awards across the U.S. and Canadian markets, GovWin IQ can make identifying the right companies easy.

Search for subcontractor and Mentor/Protege companies

In addition to subcontracting filters, GovWin IQ helps bridge the gap between vendors and agencies with Smart Tags™ throughout the platform. Smart Tags ensure users can find relevant results without worrying about missing a keyword variation by rationalizing keyword data so you can search using terminology you’re familiar with and gain a complete view of what's available. With these tags available throughout GovWin IQ, users can search with an apples-to-apples approach for themselves, potential partners, and competition.

Building a Strategic Teaming Architecture with GovWin IQ

With the ability to search for companies that fit certain criteria, review past performance, search by socioeconomic set-aside, identify mentor/protégé relationships, dedupe data and review historical pricing, we’re making it easier to gain a holistic view of the subcontracting market. By making teaming research easier, GovWin IQ helps contractors make strategic decisions that can grow their business in a time of increased competition.

Ready to learn more? Experience the GovWin IQ platform and all its latest enhancements for yourself.