The Synergy of Marketing Information

Now I understand why our government customers become frustrated when researching the qualifications of small businesses. Recently I had the opportunity to seek out colleague companies to form a small business team in response to a new RFP. Well I thought I had the company analysis process nailed. I went to my favorite small business association, The American Small Business Coalition, to search for vetted companies possessing the right capabilities and past performance. And then the other foot hit the ground. After I entered my search criteria and read the results - far less than I expected considering I knew so many of my business colleagues supposedly possessed the capabilities I was seeking - I began to verify the specific company profiles in the associations database against their company's website, the CCR and the FPDS-NG databases. Oh....my....gosh! Talk about disparity.

A very serious lesson learned yet so trivial to many. In our zeal to establish our name-branding and marketing fronts, we often forget that as time marches on we need to keep these various and prolific postings up to date. How many companies do you know started out as software developers and morphed into system engineering, network engineering, or complete system development entities? I know and have seen many do this as the market trends and customer requirements changed. However, did those companies remember to update their CCR records? What about 8A graduates? Information lurking about the internet should be groomed and maintained. We never know who is checking out these data items and we never know what grand opportunities we may miss for lack of simple data management.

And don't forget about what our customers unwittingly do to us through their zeal to process our precious contracts. Often the data entry person, contracting officer, COTR, or other well intentioned individual will haphazardly label our contract performance with the wrong NAICS or SIN identifiers. We don't pay much attention to this information until, at some future time when the "light bulb" is turned on, an opportunity passes us by because a search through the federal databases reveal that our web site statements of expertise, marketing materials, CCR entries, are belied by the contract details posted in the Federal Procurement Database System-Next Generation. Do yourself a favor, check out these databases and compare them to your website and marketing materials. You'll be glad you did!