Market Analysis Tool

How to Find Government Contracting and Grant-Making Entry Points to New Agencies and Products / Services

Finding The Best Areas For Expansion

Custom Analysis

The HigherGov Market Research Tool can create custom analyses to research and analyze potential areas for expansion. To access the analysis tool, go to Explore --> Analysis in the sidebar or click here. Common filters to set include Agency (Awarding), NAICS, PSC, Set Aside, and Assistance Type.

Examples of typical analyses that can be used with each type of analysis include:

• Trend: Understand trends in the total dollar volume of contracts or grants

• Shares: Understand the relative importance of agencies, NAICS / PSC codes, or Programs

• Categories: Understand trends in the share of awards over time

• Maps: Understand the geographic dispersion of awards

• Vehicle Rankings: Understand key contract vehicles

• Awardee Rankings: Understand major incumbent Awardees

The below shows an example of an analysis to find the most attractive NAICS codes for full & open contracts within HHS.

First looking at the largest NAICS codes:

Then adding the 541330 NAICS code to see the trend in awards over time:

The Vehicles Rankings tab can be used to discover what multi-award contract vehicles are most key for the filtered market:

The Awardee Rankings tab can be used to discover who the market leaders in the filtered market are, either to identify potential partners or understand the strengths / weaknesses of the current leaders:

Detail Pages

In addition to running custom analyses, the Agencies, Defense Program, Grant Program, PSC, and NAICS detail pages have pre-prepared analyses that can be further customized as needed. These pages can also provide a launching point for understanding recent contracts and grants awarded, active opportunities, and more.

Finding Entrance Points

Vehicles

In some cases, winning a seat on a contract vehicle or schedule or partnering with an existing vehicle holder can greatly increase the chances of accessing a new agency. Looking at agency vehicle rankings and vehicle award share analysis can help to identify key vehicles at target agencies, vulnerable incumbents, and which current vehicle holders are likely to make the most effective teammates.

See more details at the below link:

pageAnalyze Contract Vehicles

Teaming

Teaming with an awardee with relevant experience can help to build a relationship and past performance with the agency or to win prime contracts outright.

One method to find a strong teaming partner is to look at the largest contractors at a particular agency, program, or NAICS code (see discussion of the Awardee Ranking tool above).

See more details at the below link:

pageFind Teaming Partners

Contracting and Grant Officers

Establishing relationships with contracting or grant officers and learning about upcoming opportunities can greatly improve the odds of discovering and winning contracts. Two ways to do this effectively are to attend industry days and to build targeted relationships with key agencies.

Each Agency page has a listing of the key people at that agency and you can also search for people using the search bar at the top of each page or using the People search page (Market Intelligence --> People or click here). Additionally, you can use the Document search (Market Intelligence --> Documents or click here) to search for Industry Day presentations.

Mergers & Acquisitions

Note that the use of some of the tools mentioned in the sub-section requires a HigherGov Leader subscription. Please schedule a demo or contact us to learn more.

Among the fastest and most durable methods of expanding the scope of a business is to acquire a contractor that already has relevant experience. The last decade has seen an average of over 300 government contractor acquisitions per year and the most common acquisition rationale given by acquirers is to gain access to new customers and new products or services.

Among the HigherGov tools you can use to help execute an M&A strategy include using the Contractor Ranking tool (requires sign-in) and Awardee search to find the best fitting potential targets, the M&A Transaction search tool (requires sign-in) to find similar contracts and likely valuation/pricing, and the Investor search tool (requires sign in) to find investors to help to fund an M&A strategy.

See more details at the below link:

pageFind M&A Targets and Buyers

Finding Opportunities to Pursue

Once you have identified new potential agencies and products and services to pursue, you can use HigherGov's Contract and Grant Opportunity and Search tools (available in the sidebar under Business Development) to look for specific opportunities.

Learn more about how to find relevant opportunities at the below:

pageFederal Prime ContractspageFederal Grants and Subgrants

Other Considerations

Agency Set-Aside Targets

Federal agencies have different targets for the level of funding set aside for small business contracts. The table below shows small business set-aside targets by federal agency. Depending on your set-aside status, you may want to consider targeting agencies that align with your business status.

Government Fiscal Year 2022 Small Business Contracting Goals by Agency. Source: SBA.

Agency Openness to New Awards

Some agencies are more likely to award prime awards to new contractors than others. The below table shows the percentage of contracts awarded to contractors new to that agency (by count). A full analysis is available for subscribers by selecting Analysis in the sidebar and selecting Custom at the top and selecting the Prime Contractor Agency Expansion document.

Analysis includes any prime contract award worth more than $20K in GFY2021 made to a parent contractor that had not received an award from that agency in prior years. The above list is limited to the top 25 sub-agencies by total count of awards.