Guest contributor Dustin Frigy is a member of the Michigan Defense Center team. He leads the ongoing development and promotion of the Bid Targeting System (BTS) online software, supporting Michigan companies interested in pursuing federal contracts and diversifying their customer portfolio. Dustin has been involved in procurement for more than 17 years, primarily assisting entrepreneurs sell their products and services to federal, state, and local government agencies.
The Bid Targeting System is a no-cost, online software resource designed to support companies interested in government contracting identify and prioritize federal contracts. It matches businesses with top bidding opportunities and saves companies time and money as they pursue federal bids.
Companies interested in learning how to use the BTS and applying for a grant can attend a free online demo offered for new users. The session will be held on Friday, November 30 from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. To register, email the BTS team at info@bidtarget.org.
While nearly 4,000 Michigan businesses are currently serving the defense industry, there is room for more. To open up access, the center recently launched the Bid Targeting System (BTS), a web-based tool application designed by a former Department of Defense contracting officer that supports companies with government contracting experience and companies which have not done business with the government in the past. Through business intelligence and predictive analytics, the BTS helps organizations quickly identify and prioritize federal contract opportunities.
Developed by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s (MEDC) Michigan Defense Center, the many features and benefits of BTS include in-depth business intelligence from various public and private sources that will help you make better-informed decisions when pursuing federal contracts.
Here are three great reasons to take advantage of free access to the Bid Targeting System online software:
#1 Better understand your firm’s potential for federal contracting.
The Bid Targeting System software develops business profiles and then identifies potential contracting opportunities and prioritizes them on a 100-point scale. Your firm can use intel from BTS to develop a practical roadmap to becoming a successful federal contractor by leveraging information from multiple sources.
The resource also scores companies the way a federal contracting officer would — giving small and medium-sized contractors the same advantages that large primes derive from their in-house experts.
You will also better understand your firm’s strengths and weaknesses, the same that federal buyers are seeing. Use BTS to customize strategies to improve your government contracting readiness score and grow your business faster.
#2 Let BTS identify the best federal contracting opportunities for your firm.
BTS takes the guesswork out of the federal contract process by automatically matching your firm with top bidding opportunities. With 8,000 to 10,000 federal contracts to bid on at any given time, it can be a very daunting, intimidating process to sift through the thousands of opportunities and invest your time and resources to pursue them. BTS creates and uses your business profile to automatically identify and prioritize the best federal contract opportunities when logging in for the first time.
You can further prioritize bid opportunities with custom search filters and criteria weights, as well as receive daily email notifications of new bid opportunities. BTS even allows you to personally manage your bid opportunity search profile and save and manage your favorite bid opportunities with total user control.
There are thousands of different federal contracts for products and services, including IT services, construction providers, product suppliers, and others. Federal contracts often have a ripple effect on a community as companies invest more and sub-contract with other local businesses.
This resource can be a valuable tool to businesses within the Ann Arbor region, which are located in a geographically rich area with numerous federal contracting possibilities.
#3 Grant funding is readily available to hire professional proposal writers.
One huge benefit the Bid Targeting System offers small- to mid-sized companies is grant funding to help businesses hire professional bid writers. The objective is to connect more businesses to federal contracting and simplify the process to increase their chances at landing federal contract opportunities.
The Michigan Defense Center has set aside a pool of grant funds of which Michigan businesses can take advantage. Once awarded, companies can choose one of three professional bid writing companies to write their proposal.
For example, the construction firm RBV Contracting in southeast Michigan seized the opportunity to apply for grant writing monies. The company received $6,000 for a grant to hire JetCo Solutions in Grand Rapids to assist in its first bid submission for a contract at the Combine Readiness Training Center in Alpena. The assistance RBV received for the technical portion of the bid was invaluable, said RBV Contracting Owner Jim Foucher. The company won that bid and at least a dozen others following.
Twenty-seven companies have applied for grant funds to date, winning more than 87 percent of bid applications and generating more than $10 million in federal contracts for Michigan.
Additional resources are available on the Michigan Defense Center website.
