How FPDS can Help you Win Government Contracts

The Federal Procurement Data System - Next Generation or FPDS is a government website that gives unprecedented real-time access to government spending patterns. The system is free to access and only requires you to create an account. The efficacy of a system like this is that it allows contractors to look at past contract actions to determine the propensity and viability of doing business with the government. A quick search can tell you if the government is spending money on what you sell, how much they are spending on it, which the top agencies are that are buying what you sell, and who your competition and best teaming partners are.

 

Here’s how FPDS can help you get the government contracting opportunities.

Determine if government contracts is a viable option for your company

 If you are already in government contracting, this point is not for you. But if you are thinking of pursuing public contracts, this is the most important point for you. Before you spend months pursuing government programs, certifications, or getting a GSA schedule, you need to do some research. The first thing you need to research is the market viability of selling what you offer to the government. Many times people just assume that the government does or does not want what they have to sell. The only way to know this is to pull the reports from FPDS. You will first need NAICS codes. These are standard codes that the government uses to look up vendors who sell what you sell.

Use FPDS to identify all agencies that are buying what you sell

One of the easiest ways to search data in the system is by NAICS code. This allows you to target your specific product or service and to pull detailed reports by what you sell. Once you do a search on your NAICS code, you can download this data into an Excel spreadsheet and sort the data. Once you have the data, you will want to look at the "Contracting Agency" field. This is the list of agencies that are buying what you sell. Once you identify who is buying what you sell, you can now develop a strategy for how you are going to approach them as well as start to target them on sites like Fed Biz Ops and other government procurement websites. Keep in mind that government contracting demand specific marketing strategy as well.

Formulate your strategy

Once you have all of the information in items 1-4, you can start to form your strategy. Having an overall strategy for how you will approach the government contracting opportunities in general always helps. Also, you need to work on micro strategies from time to time.   Understand that not all agencies buy the same way and that there are many opportunities that you need to be aware of. For example, the Defense Logistics Agency or DLA, has a system called DIBBS that it uses for many purchases under 100K. These opportunities only show up on the DIBBS system and are very important to watch for anyone who is servicing logistics type items such as fasteners, cabling, tools, etc. They also have MRO contracts. These are Maintenance, Repair and Operations contracts that are awarded by region periodically and something you will want to watch for if DLA is your target customer. Watching for specific government contracts and bid opportunities like this would fall under your micro strategy.

A caution word: Various government watchdog groups and consulting firms have suggested that FPDS can be off by as much as a billion dollars at any given time. What you really need to know is that human beings are entering the data and from time to time make mistakes. The reports that you pull are only as good as the data that was entered so just understand that the data can be off at any given time. That is one of the main reasons we suggest you check the site frequently.

Final Thoughts

Whether you are working on your main strategy or micro strategies, the FPDS system can be a valuable tool for you to use to gather market intelligence. We recommend checking FPDS every 3 to 6 months depending on your industry. This will allow you to stay on top of trends and allow you to make changes to your strategy on an ongoing basis.