Transforming Business Development within GovCon Organizations – Part 3
As we continue to explore the impact digital transformation has on the Public Sector and Government Contractors, one of the core elements to focus on is the importance of having quality data readily available. Data is essential to running a healthy business. Decisions made with limited or poor data, do not lead to successful outcomes.
Government contractors must track and report on a massive amount of data. Pipeline data, competitive intelligence, market trends, internal performance metrics, customer data, program management data, compliance data, financial data… Even reading that list is exhausting. Business Development (BD) systems are able to store some of this data but too often, the system holds information that is not really a part of the capture process to feed reports for the larger organization.
Building a Digital Transformation Strategy
At the enterprise level, government contractors are continuing to make a financial commitment to cloud computing. Though the topics of implementing new software systems and managing legacy systems remain in the top five concerns for most IT Departments, other departments like BD are clamoring to re-engineer their business processes in a bid to stay ahead of emerging market trends. The conflict amongst these ideas can leave organizations paralyzed without a plan. Implementing a digital transformation strategy that includes interactive visualizations and business intelligence capabilities can decouple BD data capture tools from enterprise reporting tools without compromising security or compliance.
BD data is about possibilities and predictions and is one piece of the data puzzle that is used by government contractor organizations for forecasting and strategic planning. With the majority of government contractors saying expanding into new agencies is a top growth strategy, monitoring opportunity lifecycle health is critical. BD system reporting tools need to be flexible to support activities beyond tracking the basics as opportunities mature. True market segmentation analysis, proposal staffing resource management, gate review delivery and approval all take place in a dedicated BD system that extends into capture support functions. The effort required to collect and track data that only reports on enterprise interests of the organization conflicts with the specific focus required can discourage good data collection. Working in a system designed to support the motions of capture activities makes actionable information available to the enterprise business intelligence application. BD systems data should mingle with other enterprise data in a data warehouse feeding an enterprise reporting tool.
Visualizing Data Across Platforms
Using a cloud-based visualization platform expressly built for integration with systems across the enterprise can help IT maintain a balance between modern and legacy systems during digital transformation. With an intuitive layout accessing pre-configured datasets, users can design their own reports, save and share them. The enterprise can leverage all of the workaround spreadsheets created by individuals, the data that resides in systems of record for finance, HR, contracts and procurement plus BD to quickly create insights that historically added enumerable hours for data calls and revisions to spreadsheets. Dashboards designed for users without permissions to access enterprise systems synthesize data in a way that supports a complete view, enabling good decisions backed by solid information.
Avtex Can Help
Avtex has extensive experience working with Government Contractors and government agencies providing consultation and resources to bring an optimal customer experience to support internal and external mission-critical applications.
Join our team of federal government experience experts on Tuesday, June 23, as they demonstrate how the Avtex proprietary CRM accelerator, BidWin is increasing the effectiveness of Microsoft Dynamics 365 by more than 50 percent for government contractors.
