Are Government Contractors Doing Enough to Differentiate Themselves?

I probably need some clarification on what you mean by “thought leadership marketing,” but I can share my perceptions from having been both a civil service COR and a contractor responsible for business development – not in that order: Too many contractors approached the government from a “thought leadership” position. There is a time and a place for this sort of thing, but government officials see a dozen or more of these self-proclaimed “thought leaders” with every solicitation. A claim on a “thought leadership” advantage had better be well supported, and properly timed and executed.

Most of the time, the contractor doesn’t have the full picture. It’s hard for them to provide the kind of thought leadership the government needs without all the pieces. I’ve come to believe that this is by design. Sure… I know that there are advantages that come from serving multiple clients and picking up multiple perspectives (if those perspectives are truly collected and shared within a company), but often by the time of award, the contractor is put in a specific box and asked to focus on completing the tasks within that box.

On any given project, the government might have multiple contracting companies working together. After award, each are responsible for their share of the load. To the extent possible, the government will make what each contractor is responsible for clear and undisputed. Overlaps have a track record of becoming problems.

The government rarely wants to re-tool a project after award. The time for creative thinking and thought leadership is before the statements of work are drafted and awarded. If a trusted contractor can get him/herself into a position to influence the thought leadership phase of a project, then they run the risk of having an unfair advantage over their peers, and disqualifying themselves from the bid process. KO’s don’t like to deal with a contested award. They slow down the process and create a lot of paperwork.

I used to (when I was a contractor) want to believe that my contributions went beyond my statement of work. I felt the rarely captured the real value my teams were providing, and certainly didn’t reflect all the thought leadership we provided to the government while on task. The line is pretty clear though. Venture outside of a written SOW and there are demons lurking. Do more and these demons can cause problems – particularly if there’s a competitor who knows how to use that against you, or a KO or COR who is focused on execution.