In the prior installment on selling IT to governments, we talked about business development, distinguishing "inside" from "outside."

We said that the outside business developer works with agency officials to shape acquisition plans, define future requirements and influence evaluation criteria.

The inside business developer, on the other hand (who is often the same person), conducts the initial research to find the potential targets: the official buyers and end-users who are or may become interested in purchasing the company's products or services.

In this fourth installment of our IT series, we take a closer look at this critical inside business development function.

Assess Your Capabilities

Before starting down the long, dusty research road, first take the time to assess your company's capabilities. Prepare a concise description of your products or services and what it is they do to meet general government objectives.

Compare yourself to your competitors and be honest about it. Be realistic about the capabilities, size and market penetration of your toughest foes. Find out which agencies they currently do business with. If a competitor is way ahead of you, try to go where they AREN'T--at least for now--or join them (if possible) as a subcontractor.
Select Target Agencies

After your capabilities assessment, begin your search for potential agencies. Start with the obvious ones. For example, you might pick those that:

• are within your geographic area,
• are already known to buy your products or services,
• employ people you, your employees or your friends and colleagues know in government.

At this initial stage, common sense and intuition will point you in the right direction. For example, if you sell customer service-related software, start with large public interface agencies such as Social Security, Veterans Administration and Internal Revenue. If you're with a Web design firm, look at agencies planning to develop new Internet portals.

Next, conduct research to move beyond the obvious targets. Focus your research on:

• Acquisition Plans - As we discussed in Installment 23 of our "Doing Business with Government" series, acquisition plans show what products and services an agency requires and how they are to be acquired during the life of a given project.
  
• Agency Forecasts - As we discussed in Installment 7 government agencies often post forecasts of upcoming procurements to give contractors a "heads up" on future business opportunities.
  
• Funding Chains - The federal government funds many state and local government programs either through grants or direct funding. Examples include employment services, unemployment insurance, medical programs, welfare, education, and children's programs. Following these funding chains can be useful if you have IT products or services that support such programs.
  
• Awards - Award information will tell you what an agency bought, when it was bought and for how much. Oftentimes the information on the type of product or service acquired is too general to be useful. When that's the case, simply dig further by contacting the buyer. Find out the name and phone number of the end-user. Also, ask for a copy of the contract if you think that will be useful.
  
• Bid Notices - We often say that responding to a public bidding opportunity is futile if you do not have advanced knowledge of the opportunity. That's a general rule of course. Exceptions include fixed price bids for IT commodities. Even when the rule applies, current IT bid notices can still be valuable for predicting future activity. Bidders lists associated with individual bids can tell you who is bidding on what, thereby showing you what your competition is up to and possibly alerting you to subcontracting opportunities.

Develop an Intelligence List

Once you've identified your list of agencies, begin the process of gathering detailed intelligence. The ideal list of intelligence on a given agency would include:

• The specific agency programs that may require your product or service and details on exactly what the requirements are.
  
• The goals, objectives and names and contact information of decision- makers associated with the programs.
  
• Enabling legislation and any relevant regulatory information.
  
• Agency program budgets.
  
• Acquisition plans and forecasts.
  
• Previous IT procurements (with emphasis on re-occurring procurements), including incumbent contractors, contract amounts, contract history and results.
  
• Planned IT procurements, including projected contract amounts, potential bidders, and procurement history.
  
• The installed base of hardware and software.
  
• The competition, including strength and weakness assessments.
  
• Any multiple award schedule (MAS) contractors and purchasing vehicles available to the agency.
  
• Best value considerations, customer hot buttons and insights into the customer's problems and potential solutions.
  
• Current company relationships related to the opportunity.

The above is an ideal list. Most of the time you won't have it all. The list, though, gives you a nice outline and something to shoot for.

Other Resources

Beyond our own resources mentioned above, here are some others that can help you in your intelligence gathering:

FirstGov.gov - This federal search engine can help you find almost any federal government Web page.

Government IT publications:

• Federal Computer Week
  
• Government Computer News
  
• Government Executive
  
• Washington Technology
  
• Government Technology