To survive the new GovCon environment, your people are your ultimate competitive edge
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By
Nic Coppings
Five critical blind spots that threaten you contracts, and how to transform your team before it is too late, according to BD expert Nic Coppings.
GovCon executives, that knot in your stomach? It's not just stress. It's a warning sign that the perfect storm of contract consolidations, budget scrutiny, economic uncertainty, and hyper-competition is already impacting organizations like yours.
This isn't a market correction; it's a fundamental reshaping. Survival hinges on your ability to adapt, anticipate disruption, and empower your most valuable asset: your people.
Five Critical Blind Spots & Solutions:
1. More Than One Customer Contact Is Not Optional
Your champion announces their retirement, and you realize your team hasn't executed the account penetration strategy - leaving you with no intel source on a "must-win" opportunity.
Remember when one good contact was enough? Those days are long gone.
Ask Yourself:
- Are you well positioned with other stakeholders to avoid a setback if your top contact were to leave tomorrow?
- Have you built connections with all stakeholders? Users, technical evaluators, contracting officers, and program managers?
Forward-thinking companies develop account maps and establish strong customer stakeholder networks, ensuring resilience even when key individuals leave.
2. Intelligence Is Your Most Valuable Commodity
During a project meeting, your customer openly shares their frustrations about critical mission gaps. Your PM nods politely and then changes the subject to the first item on their agenda. This is a costly mistake.
Every engagement is an opportunity to gather intel, and your delivery/ops teams will have hundreds, if not thousands, of meetings annually with the customer. Most contractors overlook this intel gold mine.
Ask Yourself:
- Is your delivery team trained to identify and capture customer intelligence while performing their day-to-day tasks?
- Does everyone understand that gathering and sharing customer intelligence is their responsibility?
Forward-thinking organizations train their technical and delivery teams to proactively gather and share customer intelligence. These "Double Threats" are game changers.
3. Early Engagement Is Key to Winning
While you wait for an RFP to drop, your competitors are hard at work understanding the customer needs, submitting white papers, and shaping the solicitation to their strengths.
When most RFPs drop, the preferred winner is already known. That's not cynicism - it's reality.
Ask yourself:
- Are you starting early enough to shape requirements or just respond to them?
- When was the last time you helped a customer solve a problem before they knew they had one?
Forward-thinking organizations engage customers early, proactively understanding challenges and influencing priorities. They establish themselves as trusted partners long before the RFP drops.
4. Is Your Customer Intelligence Real or Just Assumptions?
Your last losing bid probably wasn't because of price or capabilities. It stemmed from a lack of customer intelligence. Your competitor's proposal was based on real customer intelligence, while yours relied on assumptions. In the debrief, the customer's words stung, "You didn't understand us or our needs!"
Ask yourself:
- When was the last time your team successfully shaped an RFP?
- Does your team uncover intelligence your competitors don't have, or are you competing blind?
Forward-thinking organizations prioritize relationships and intel gathering. Everyone claims to have "customer intimacy," but most are fooling themselves. Winning companies know what their customers truly want - no assumptions needed.
5. Is Your Team Equipped to Win Recompetes?
A "guaranteed" recompete is unexpectedly lost. With fewer new opportunities available, winning your recompetes is no longer optional. It's a matter of survival.
Your competitors are inside the agency today, influencing how your recompetes will look tomorrow.
Ask Yourself:
- If your BD team is downsized, does your delivery team possess the knowledge and engagement skills to win the recompete?
- Do you really know what your customers think of your team and performance?
- Are you prepared for competitors bidding at or below cost to win your work?
Forward-thinking organizations ensure their teams understand customer priorities, regularly introduce innovations, and proactively demonstrate ongoing value.
A complacent incumbent is a vulnerable incumbent.
The Human Advantage:
In 2025, technology and pricing are just the starting point. Your people and their ability to connect, understand, and deliver are the ultimate differentiators.
The Call to Action:
Transform your organization now. Assess your team's growth potential, invest in training, and build a customer-focused engagement culture.
The alternative? It's too painful to mention!
The winners in this new landscape won't be the biggest or the most established. They'll be companies that transformed their entire workforce into a growth engine before their competitors realized it was necessary.
The market has changed. Your competitors have already transformed. The only question remaining:
Are you preparing to win, or are you ready to be forgotten?
As Senior Partner at Hi-Q Group, Nic Coppings brings over 20 years of experience in the Government market, helping organizations secure billions in contract wins. Our training programs transform customer engagement, equipping your entire team with the skills to build Winning Relationships® that drive growth. Ready to stop guessing and start winning? Learn how Hi-Q Training can transform your growth. Schedule a time to chat here.