Find and Analyze Potential Teaming Partners
How to Find Teaming Partners to Successfully Pursue Federal Contract or Grant Opportunities
The HigherGov Awardee Ranking Analysis Tool sorts parent contractors and grant recipients by their level of federal obligations. This can be useful in finding potential partners who have relevant prior experience to compete for a contract or grant.
To access the HigherGov Awardee Ranking Analysis Tool, go to Explore --> Analysis in the sidebar or click here (must be signed-in) and choose the Awardee Rankings tab. To search for potential partners, first select the relevant category of Awards under the Includes drop-down (Contracts or Grants, Sub or Prime). Next, add Filters for data relevant to the contract opportunity.
For Contracts the recommended filters to add include (but are limited to):
- Set Aside (select No Set Aside Used for Full & Open competition)
- Agency (Awarding)
- NAICS or PSC
- Place of Performance
- Potential Value (suggest setting a very wide range)
For Grants the recommended filters to add include (but are not limited to):
- Agency (Awarding)
- Assistance Type
- Place of Performance
- Amount Obligated (suggest setting a very wide range)
If you are not finding many results, you can extend the date period to the past 3 or 5 years or try broadening or removing filters.
You can also filter for potential partners that meet desired criteria by going to Market Intelligence --> Awardees in the sidebar or by clicking here.
Some of the common criteria for filtering for buyers or targets include:
- NAICS: Limit the search to Awardees focused on the most relevant NAICS codes
- Business Type: Limit the search to contractors with the most relevant Business Types
- Contract and Grant PY Obligations: Limit the search to Awardees with at least a certain level of prior year federal obligations
Note that the NAICS and Business Type filters are based on the NAICS codes and Business Types disclosed in the awardee's registration with the federal government, and does not necessarily reflect historical performance. For filtering based on actual historical performance, see the Awardee Ranking Tool above.
Another method of finding relevant prior experience is to search for the Awardees of similar contracts or grants to the one you are looking to find a partner on. The Contract and Grant searches allow you to apply dozens of filters to find contracts or grants that share agency customers, set asides, size, keywords, and much more.
Looking at potential other bidders for a contract or grant can help you find potential partners to pursue the opportunity with. Most Opportunity pages will show an automatically generated list of potential competing bidders based on the details of the opportunity. To find a contract opportunity enter the title or solicitation ID in the search bar at the top of each page or search for the Contract Opportunity in the Contract Opportunity search here.
If the opportunity you are looking to pursue requires contract vehicle access, you can use the Vehicle search bar at the top of the page or the Vehicle search page (Market Intelligence --> Awards --> Vehicles in the sidebar or click here) to find the vehicle detail page. The Vehicle page provides details on current awardees as well as the current Award Share, which can help determine the likelihood of a particular potential partner winning.
To learn more about analyzing vehicles, see:
HigherGov covers more than 4,000 contract vehicles representing the vast majority of multi-award contract vehicles by dollar awarded. If you are an annual subscriber and need analysis of a contract vehicle we do not currently cover, please contact us or reach out in the chat.
Once you have identified a potential partner, you can learn more about their prior experience, existing partners, and other details relevant to their competitive positioning and capabilities by reviewing their Awardee page. For more information please see the below guide:
If the Awardee has a GSA Schedule such as a Multiple Award Schedule, the schedule can provide more context about what services and products they provide beyond what you can typically find on their website.
You can find an Awardee's GSA schedule on the Awardee page. Alternatively, you can also search for schedules by going to the Document search page, selecting the Source filter and choosing Federal Schedule, and then typing in the awardee name as a Keyword.