PSP Channel Insights
Strategies & partnerships central to doing business with the public sector

Fourteenth in a Series of Newsletters
Addressing Building Effective Partnerships


Multiple Award Contract Vehicles and the SI Community

In selling your products and services to the Federal Government community I'm sure you have been following awards of some of the mega contracting vehicles.

Whether you believe these vehicles will be successful or not you still need to understand what they offer and how to possibly leverage these contracts to help in selling your offerings.

Most of these vehicles are solutions based, not product based.  And the great majority of the award winners are the usual SI firms, not the product manufacturers or the resellers/VARs.  But you know and I know (or you should know) that a ton of product will be involved in developing and delivering these solutions.

Let's look at the GSA Alliant contract that was awarded 29 integrators last month.

Services include:

·         Customer relationship management and customer preference customization. Process automation, including tracking and workflow, along with routing and scheduling.

·         Business management, including process management, organizational management, investment management and supply chain management.

·         Digital asset services, including content management, document management, knowledge management and records management.

·         Business analytical services, including analysis and statistics, visualization, knowledge discovery, business intelligence, and reporting.

·         Back-office services, including data management, human resources, financial management, asset/material management, development and integration, and workforce management.

·        Support services, including security management, collaboration, search, communications, systems management and forms management.

DHS Eagle with 25 award winners.

Services include:

·         Infrastructure engineering design, development, implementation and integration

·         Operations and maintenance

·         Independent test, validation, verification and evaluation

·         Software design

·         Management support services

 And there are others such as Networx Universal, Networx Enterprise, and SATCOM II that you should also look into.

In trying to take advantage of these contract vehicles, can you answer these questions:

·         What contract vehicle(s) can I best support?

·         Within these contract vehicle service requirements where can my product and/or offerings best play? 

·         What can I bring to the SIs in helping develop a winning solutions off of these contracts?

·         Who within the SIs have responsibilities for the success of these contract vehicles?

·         How can I get the SI’s attention in hopes having them consider my offerings as part of their solution?

·         Are we pursuing the SI awardees as part of our overall SI partner development strategy?

If your answers are NO, then you are probably need to re-look at your strategy. 

We are always willing to discuss strategies and tactics that might help you work more effectively with the System Integrator community.  All you have to do is ask.  If you would like to discuss these strategies and tactics please contact me at 571-218-0288 or via email at slewis@pspartnerships.com

Happy partnering!

- Scott

About PS Partnerships

President and CEO Scott W. Lewis has more than 15 years of experience in public sector information technology. As Group Publisher of Government Computer News and Washington Technology, Vice President of INPUT, Vice President of Partner Development of Micro Warehouse Gov/Ed and Vice President of ENC Marketing & Communications, Lewis has worked with numerous information technology firms in the development and execution of their channel/partnering business and marketing strategies into the Public Sector (Federal, State & Local)

Over the years, Lewis found that many companies either did not understand how or had difficultly in establishing the partnerships and teaming relationships that are absolutely critical for success in the government market. So he established PS Partnerships in July 2005 to focus directly on helping companies build strategies and partnerships for doing business in the public sector.

For more information about the services PS Partnerships provides, please contact us:
PS Partnerships LLC
607 Knollwood Drive
Falls Church, VA  22046
Scott Lewis, President and CEO
PHONE: 571.218.0288
slewis@pspartnerships.com

www.pspartnerships.com