The Federal Formula

Gloria Berthold, president of TargetGov, an Elkridge, Md.-based consulting firm that shows companies how to sell to the federal government, gave that message of hope to public-sector VARs at Everything Channel's XChange Government Integrator event outside Washington, D.C., last month.

There is a formula for small solution providers trying to weave their way through federal bureaucracy in order to get a piece of the government's IT spend, pegged at $400 billion last year, Berthold said. The most important thing is to establish an identity that helps you stand out in the eyes of federal officials holding the IT purse strings.

"There is a sea of IT companies knocking on their door looking for a handout; that's how they think of us," she said.

Berthold cited any solution related to security as a huge opportunity for solution providers. "In real estate it's location, location, location," she said. "In the federal government, it's security, security, security."

Mohamed Elrefai, vice president, Enterprise Solutions Group at GTSI Corp., a public-sector solution provider in Chantilly, Va., agreed that security is in high demand within federal agencies. But he said that solution providers need to think of the federal government more as a midmarket opportunity than as a giant enterprise reserved only for large integrators.

Elrefai said GTSI found a cybersecurity opportunity within a department of the Navy in which the department was charged with monitoring some 1 billion transactions daily. "But they had no money. They had a mission, but how could they get it done?" he said.

What GTSI did was to offer a per-transaction-fee, which saved the Navy infrastructure costs and made the solution feasible.

Berthold said smaller solution providers targeting the federal government must craft capability statements, a one- or two-page document outlining their company's history, core competencies and work history. The statement needs to be rewritten for each proposal so that it is tailored to the specific task at the specific government agency.

"If you don't have the experience that's exactly related to what the agency needs, don't even walk through that door, because you won't get the work," she said.

The capability statement should never be posted on the solution provider's Web site, Berthold added. Rather, solution providers should craft an online statement that contains nothing but searchable keyword terms that will show up on search engines as procurement offices search the Web.

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