Government business is a critical component of Bank of America's commercial-banking revenue stream. By finding out about upcoming government-contract opportunities, the bank is able to contact and build relationships with the decision-makers before the RFP process begins.
As one of the nation’s largest water and wastewater contractors, Kansas City-based Garney Construction competes for government contracts that have budgets in the tens of millions of dollars. So missing out on a required pre-bid meeting or an actionable RFP for a big-budget project could have a major impact on the company’s sales pipeline – and, by extension, its pipeline sales.
Caterpillar is the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, and industrial gas turbines. The company has an extensive product line that includes new, used and rental options for customers. In partnership with its dealer network, Caterpillar attempts to capitalize on every appropriate government sales opportunity as a way to maximize its revenue (U.S. government business contributes 10-20% of the company’s North American sales each year). The company had an ongoing need to notify its widely dispersed dealers of all government bids and RFPs that matched Caterpillar's business focus.
It’s a classic tradeoff: The more time you spend looking for sales leads, the less time you have to build relationships with the decision-makers – and, as a result, the less likely you are to win the business. That was the dilemma facing internationally recognized structural-engineering firm WSP Cantor Seinuk.
For car dealerships such as Bob Tomes Ford in McKinney, Texas, doing business with the government – whether it's state, local, or federal – is very different than a one-to-one sales transaction with a consumer. For starters, government buyers don't walk onto car lots and ask for test drives. You have to find government buyers yourself, because they aren't going to find you.
Waterblasting.com wanted to expand its business beyond its home state of Florida and generate sustainable growth for its high-pressure water-blasting service, which removes striping and unwanted coatings from highways, runways and other paved surfaces. To achieve those goals, the company needed to identify contractors and airfield managers in new markets and reach out to them regarding its service's value proposition, so that the company wasn't competing solely on price for government contracts.
As a wireless and IT consulting and engineering firm, RCC Consultants has built its business on ensuring the speed, reliability and comprehensive coverage of telecommunications. And those three attributes are also vitally important to the first step in the firm’s revenue-generation process – finding requests for proposals (RFPs) from government agencies that match the company’s products and services.
Prosser Hallock is a professional planning and engineering firm that provides services in four primary areas: master planning and site engineering, transportation planning and engineering, parks and recreational facility design and construction management. Most of the firm's revenue is generated from the private sector, but the company actively pursues government projects as well. In order to stay competitive in the government market and make informed bid decisions, Prosser Hallock needed timely notifications of government RFPs and the ability to locate information on competitors, decision-makers, buyers, and awards.
Professional Service Industries, Inc. (PSI) is an industry-leading consulting, engineering, and testing firm with 125 offices across America. With lines of business that include construction materials testing/engineering, geotechnical engineering, environmental consulting, and industrial hygiene, PSI is well-suited for government contract work in a wide variety of projects, and it needed a comprehensive and time-efficient way to track leads for those opportunities by project type and geographical area.
As an accounting and audit firm established nearly 40 years ago, Davis Kinard & Co, PC, of Abilene, Texas, has the qualifications and experience it needs to pursue government contracts. To track down leads on auditing contract bids within Texas, the firm's marketing team used a combination of online search engines and referrals. Over time, they found this strategy to be too time-consuming and inefficient, and they couldn't be sure that they'd identified all of the most promising leads.
