Looking to check out the kind of federal government contracting business being done by your competitors? Check out the Contracts section of USAspending.gov. This online database allows users to search for spending related to all federal government contracts. The left-hand side of the page holds navigation fields, where users enter search criteria. Users can search by: contractor, principal place of performance, and contracting agency.
This tool presents detailed data on federal government contractors, including: products and services sold, top purchasing agencies, location of where work was performed, and even the breakdown of what kind of competition the company had to win their awards.
To check out an example of the extent of competition breakdown, enter the name “Lockheed Martin”, and click “search”. On the page that holds those search results, scroll down to the “Extent of Competition” data pie chart. The red/maroon section indicates the amount of federal government contract dollars awarded to Lockheed Martin without any competition. That maroon section indicates money awarded to Lockheed Martin, when theirs was the only bid received for that contract. Lockheed Martin was awarded $568,843,002 in federal government contracts (FY 2009) without any competition.
Take a look at the “Top 5 Products or Services Sold” section on the right hand side of that page. Are those products and services that your company is capable of producing?
If so, you should have been competing for those dollars.
How else can the small business owner use the USAspending.gov “Contracts” search tool to research competition?