The Fed spends almost $4 trillion ($4,000,000,000,000) dollars per year or $13,333 per person and $1.1 trillion of it is discretionary. Mandatory spending on Social Security, Medicare, and the safety net programs is 66% of the budget. The balance is interest on the soaring debt. Since the numbers have been climbing, and it is a huge number, you may be wondering how does my firm get a piece of that spending?
Since my background has been running a Federal Sales program in the IT world, let’s drill down into the spending and the effectiveness of it. The Federal Government spends $80 billion on IT annually and although the intention is good the execution falls well short. An article posted in The Week via the New York Times via The Standish Group says 94% of large federal IT projects were unsuccessful and 41% failed completely. In addition, it cost the Federal Government 37% more for a project than it does for a comparable project done in the commercial world. Let all that sink in for a few minutes!
So can your firm help the government spend more wisely and be more successful on their project implementations?
There are a lot of explanations for these numbers and a book could be written about it. That is not where I am going but a few quick reasons are Set Aside Codes for small, disadvantaged businesses, large change orders, Country of Origin requirements, Low Price Technically Acceptable awards (LPTA), and long timelines from project development to implementation all contribute to the higher costs.
In running our Federal Government program, I would always ask “are you getting your fair share and are you selling or responding?” If you are selling, it takes time and you have to have a plan to accomplish your goals. You might start selling components for a project but are you positioning your preferred portfolio to the government?
What are you doing to increase your Federal and State government business? Would you like to learn more about how to do business with the Government? We have two courses designed to help you understand the government acquisition model and position your firm to get your fair share: Government 101 and Penetrating the Federal Government. If you need help, Armor Assets is here to help. Email (Dick@armorassets.com), call (301-704-7818), or visit our web site at www.armorassets.com.