Supporting Small Business Government Contractors With Solutions That Scale and Grow

Designed for the Entire Government Contracting Lifecycle

Small businesses trying to break into government contracting has never been an easy road, but companies like Deltek are paving the way for their success.

In the past, government agencies would take an entire year to release a single RFP published in a print journal, making it challenging for resource-strapped companies to find and win contracts. However, with the dawn of the digital age and the help of market intelligence solutions, gaining access to RFPs well in advance of the release date has been a game-changer for government contractors and especially small businesses. What has also helped small businesses break into government contracting has been federal government small business spending goals and programs like 8(a) and HUBZone, where contract spending is set aside specifically for small businesses. The Small Business Administration’s annual procurement scorecard found that in FY2020, the federal government exceeded its goals for small business spending for the second year in a row. But even with this increase in spending, taking advantage of these new opportunities isn’t always straightforward for small companies.

“Small businesses have a unique set of challenges,” said Carey Webster, Senior Director of Research at Deltek. “They must navigate the complicated and ever-changing contracting landscape often with limited internal resources.” The contracting environment became even more complicated in 2020. According to Deltek’s 2021 GovCon Clarity study, the average profit margin of small businesses declined from 15% to 10% as the pandemic disrupted business operations.

Deltek has responded to the changing government contracting landscape and supported small businesses to overcome these challenges for nearly 40 years. Our goal, then, and still today, is to make it easier for small companies to get started in government contracting and establish themselves once they do. That’s why we are committed to providing services and solutions that help companies of all sizes assess their place in the market, scale their presence and visibility, and determine how and when to grow in a way that best fits their business goals.

A Trusted Partner for Small Business and Enterprise Companies Alike

Supporting the business processes of small companies with pioneering innovation has always been an emphasis of Deltek's. Deltek initially offered two separate GovCon ERP systems to address the needs of different size companies. These two systems became one through continuous modernization and enhancements, allowing businesses of all sizes to leverage Costpoint's scalability. Meaning, as smaller companies pursue new business, they're better positioned to win and meet industry compliance requirements because of the capabilities Deltek Costpoint provides. Those advancements were made in tandem with our continual focus on customer support−helping small businesses implement their new project-based ERP systems and working together as partners.

Fast forward to 2021, and “we have more than 1000 small business customers use Deltek Costpoint to run their back-office functions, specifically accounting and finance, to support contract management,” said Todd Walker, VP of Product Management for Deltek. “Our responsibility to our customers is to be forward-thinking, solving problems and making the jobs of government contractors easier across the entire project lifecycle.”

In addition to contract fulfillment and management, Deltek also supports small businesses during the contract procurement process. The GovWin IQ solution offers value to small businesses by providing market intelligence tailored to small businesses in areas like deep-dive analysis of different socioeconomic statuses, small business opportunities and subcontracting and teaming strategies. As Webster explains, “Our products are designed to help compliment their business development and capture efforts by aiding in opportunity identification, understanding government small business spending trends and making it easy to find teaming partners.” The ability to do all this in one platform has enabled thousands of small businesses to jump into the government contracting market and thrive like never before.

GPSI Guam is just one of the thousands of small business customers who have been able to benefit. A 8(a) and HUBZone-certified small business, GPSI Guam provides logistics, technical support and program management resources to the federal government. As GPSI Guam Business Operations Manager Craig Camacho said, Deltek “has allowed us to see beyond local government opportunities to grow our business. We can track potential revenue streams that keep us on target for our annual and future goals.”

Helping Customers Scale and Grow at Their Pace

“Deltek is more than a solution provider. We are a partner to small business customers. We work closely with them to support their growth,” said Walker. That growth can take many different forms – working with more agencies, working in more geographic locations, or simply gaining more mastery of a particular area of the market.

Informing a growth strategy with market expertise, whether through internal means or relying on external experts, is something small businesses must do when they are determining how best to grow. “We try to enable small businesses to work more effectively in their space,” said Brian Haney, VP of Customer Success at Deltek. “Part of that is providing training on topics such as how a government agency buys, who to know at a particular agency, all the things that go into account planning. And we bring this educational dimension to the customer on an as-needed basis. We meet them on their level.”

As companies become more sophisticated, winning more complicated government contracts and growing their business, they often start to outgrow the solutions they have been using to manage their business processes. That was what happened to Business Integra, a firm that provides information technology and mission support services.

Originally, Business Integra began as a small business, but as they started winning more contracts with the help of GovWin IQ, it soon became clear that they required a more robust solution for their accounting and project management needs. As they grew their revenue and embarked on increasingly high levels of certification, they found that constantly entering data and spending a wealth of time on manual processes became too much. “I needed my overall process to be more straightforward, and I needed one process to flow into others without interference,” said Padma Shinde, Chief Financial Officer of Business Integra. “We needed to marry everything together, and that’s why we moved to Deltek.”

What Business Integra learned, as thousands of other small businesses have, is that Deltek's solutions will scale with them, providing them with a competitive advantage against their peers and saving time and money as they grow – from contract award to fulfillment.

Our project-based solutions empower small business government contractors to succeed and scale in a way that best fits their business. They enable our small business customers to think about how to be more efficient, position themselves for growth, and find the gaps where the government is not leveraging the best and finest available resources. Deltek is more than a solution provider; we are your trusted partner. And this mindset is something that we have operated under for decades and will continue to live by as we help government contractors scale, grow and adapt to the changing landscape.

If you’d like to see more of how Deltek helps small businesses maximize their productivity and revenue, download our guide on selling to the government as a small business.

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