Unanet and CohnReznick LLP, joint authors of the fifth annual 2021 Gauge Report, released their findings from the survey which gathered data from nearly 1,500 government contracting representatives from January to May of 2021.
This year’s Gauge Report found that the top pressures currently affecting the government contracting marketplace include competition, cyber threats, compliance costs, hybrid work environments and supply chain disruptions.
GovCon Expert Kim Koster, Unanet’s vice president of GovCon strategy and co-author of the 2021 Gauge Report, shared her insights regarding how the pandemic and its residual effects have shifted the marketplace.
“In 2020, the political environment, budgets and talent recruitment ruled, but this year competition was the number one issue causing sleepless nights for executives and managers,” Koster reported.
The increase in government spending has in turn increased the level of competition government contractors are facing in the pursuit of new awards. More than 70 percent of report respondents identified that obstacles encountered in the proposal writing process pose significant challenges in successfully securing awards.
Recently, Koster authored a GovCon Expert article in which she illuminated government contractors’ top tactics for addressing these obstacles and increasing proposal win rates.
She found that government contractors are focusing on being smarter about targeting their pursuits, looking earlier for partners to team with and pushing more resources to their BD and capture teams to improve chances of delivering winning proposals.
The report also highlighted that government contractors are looking to address proposal challenges through the implementation of technological solutions that will help automate and streamline proposal management, improve communications across proposal processes and clarify proposal scope.
Christine Williamson, CPA and PMP Partner at CohnReznick emphasized these tactics and said, “Intelligent technology, effective project management, communication and collaboration have consistently proven to be solutions for this dynamic, ever-changing marketplace.”
Koster and Williamson both echo that the number one takeaway from the 2021 Gauge Report should be that government contractors’ continued success in a pressurized environment depends on “selecting better opportunities to pursue and then leveraging both technology and expertise to structure their pursuit processes for success.”