5 strategies for today's market

Kevin Plexico of Deltek offers five tips for contractors to make the most of their opportunities in today's down market.

 The next two years will be tough for government contractors with overall growth nonexistent and deep cuts coming in some sectors of the market.

There is also plenty of uncertainty around when funding will come through, what initiatives will get the green light from Congress and the White House, and how the intense partisanship among political leaders will play out.

It was against this backdrop that Kevin Plexico, vice president of federal information solutions for Deltek, offered five pieces of advice during Deltek's 2012 MarketView conference Thursday for weathering the current down market.

1. Find entry points in the growth segments such as cybersecurity, health care, analytics and intelligence. Companies can do this through strategic hires and through acquisitions.

2. Have a robust story to tell about how you fit into the key trend areas.

3. Be proactive in helping agencies identify savings. It might seem counterintuitive to tell a customer how they can spend less money with you, but if you don’t find them savings, someone else will.

4. Develop partnerships that add speed and completeness to your solutions.

5. Optimize your business development processes for efficiency and effectiveness. Gone are the days when procurements would take months or years to develop. The ability to identify and respond to opportunities quickly is critical.