David Kriegman, former Chief Operating Officer (COO) of SRA International and Author of Zero to a Billion: 61 Rules Entrepreneurs Need to Know to Grow a Government Contracting Business, was the 2014 kickoff speaker for the WashingtonExec Federal Business Council. Instead of simply retelling stories about the “golden days” of SRA international, Kriegman acknowledged that today’s federal IT market place is not the same forum it was ten years ago. Throughout the intimate roundtable, Kriegman worked to give the small business executives and CEOs attendees actionable advice about how to grow and diversify their companies.
Kriegman explained why companies need to win jobs that are larger than they ever won before. Even large businesses face push-back from their employees when they try to convey that message, since people naturally want to pursue procurements that are similar to ones that they have previously won. This is a common problem for large businesses that have acquired smaller businesses. The staff is not used to bidding very large jobs. Kriegman gave several additional obstacles to bidding large jobs and ways to overcome these obstacles. Some of these approaches require changes to an ingrained mindset. These changes in corporate culture must be led by the executives in the C-Suite.
There comes a time when almost all companies have to compete against companies that are much larger than them. Kriegman described an approach and presented examples of where that approach worked.
“We won by figuring out what the customer actually wanted, not just by meeting the RFP requirements.The goal of any organization should always be to solve the customer’s underlying problem. When submitting a bid, you should always identify the underlying problem that the customer is trying to solve,” Kriegman told the group.
Frequently, there are creative ways to convince a customer that you can help solve their underlying problems without increasing the price of the bid. If an organization is faced with a low price/technically acceptable procurement, the situation is different. Employees will need to work with the customer before the RFP is released to set the technically acceptable bar at the appropriate level. If the technically acceptable bar is set too low, the government may not get the services that it needs, Kriegman advised.
Another roadblock that small organizations often face is hiring the right talent. Kriegman’s advice is to find individuals through industry-specific networking events. Often times, good employees are not the ones applying to a job online, but are individuals out in the marketplace, looking for a new opportunities for professional development.
Read about what Kriegman had to say to the WashingtonExec Strategic Human Capital Council here on WashingtonExec.
