9 Steps to Unleash the Power of AI Across Your GovCon Business

9 Steps to Unleash the Power of AI Across Your GovCon Business

Execute projects faster, better, and more profitably.

Master your data and your compliance responsibilities.

Win more business — and make sure it’s the right kind of business.

These are the pressures that government contracting firms face every day. And these are also precisely the areas where artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities can help companies meet those challenges, and in doing so, gain a real competitive advantage.

As quickly as AI-driven tools are emerging and proving their value to government contracting (GovCon) firms (often as part of cloud-based software fulfilling critical business needs such as enterprise resource planning or customer relationship management), a firm’s ability to realize that value depends heavily on the groundwork it lays to support the AI capabilities in which it invests.

First, follow these nine steps to ensure your fundamental AI foundation is strong

In a complex business that can invite uncertainty, exacerbate inefficiencies, and stretch resources, AI capabilities can support your people and teams in a variety of ways. It also can help small-to-midsized GovCon businesses level the playing field with larger competitors.

Before we detail exactly how let’s look at the foundational elements that companies should have in place in order to put AI to work:

1. Ensure the intelligent capabilities you’re investing in are “business easy.” They should be easy for people to use, and the insights they produce should be easy to understand and apply.

2. Frankly assess how good your firm’s data is and how easy it is to access. If you identify shortcomings (areas where there’s a lack of current or trustworthy data, for example), take steps to remedy them.

3. Treat data like the valuable asset it is. Put systems in place to protect data and ensure it is structured, accessible, and secure.

4. Ensure your data can flow unimpeded and securely by integrating systems of record for people, projects, opportunities, and financials. You want the data feeding your AI models to be comprehensive and accessible, not stuck in a siloed system.

5. Hold your data in a single, secure data “lake.” It should reside in a central location that’s readily accessible to your AI and analytics tools and to relevant people across the company.

6. Don’t shy away from unstructured data. Generative AI has the ability to analyze unstructured data from proposals, résumés, reports, and other sources inside and outside the organization to glean insight.

7. Establish data processes and procedures, and take steps to ensure people follow them. Make sure stakeholders understand and follow prescribed data management processes. That’s accomplished by investing the time to train people on processes and the tools they have at hand. Put carrots and sticks in place to reinforce commitment to the process (rewards, in my experience, tend to work best).

8. Use digital forms and automated workflows wherever possible. This helps standardize data and prevent errors, gaps, and other data quality issues.

9. Build in-house AI know-how. You can then validate, test, implement, and manage your AI systems in a way that’s compliant.

Now watch AI work wonders for your business

Once these foundational pieces are in place, it’s time to put AI to work inside the business. On the business development (BD) side, AI-driven analytics capabilities can help organizations win the type of work they seek. It enables them to better evaluate and prioritize pursuits by sifting through vast amounts of data, uncover lucrative new business opportunities, and identify trends and patterns so they can hone in on projects and clients that align with their strategic priorities. We’ve reached a point where AI algorithms can now predict the probability of success for projects so company leaders can factor data-derived insight into their pursuit decisions.

Also, on the BD side, AI tools can refine and streamline proposal-creation processes. For example, using automated data-analysis tools, company decision-makers can visualize complex scenarios, identify patterns, and use data-driven insights to create bids tailored precisely to client specifications and expectations. AI can also step in during the bid preparation process, helping the proposal team interpret complex contracts, streamline functions, analyze large datasets, and predict optimal pricing strategies. Intelligent templates can minimize manual effort and ensure consistency and accuracy during RFP creation, so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel with every proposal. Your firm’s proposal-generation capacity and overall proposal quality should improve as a result — without increasing your headcount.

Improving client relations is another sweet spot for AI. It can help your BD, marketing, and client support teams better understand clients’ preferences, identify their pain points, and analyze feedback so your proposals and services more closely align with client priorities. AI can also analyze client interaction data, engagement metrics, and market trends to help shape BD and marketing strategies targeted at specific segments and prospects. You can better understand your history with a client to help improve the way you communicate with them.

AI is also an invaluable project execution support tool. It can empower timelier project decision-making and substantial improvements in overall efficiency by automating clauses, project codes, task creation, and payment processing.

On the supply chain and resource-management sides of the business, meanwhile, robotic process automation (RPA) can assist in predicting material and labor shortages and automatically send notifications about potential delays and bottlenecks. Using AI-driven predictive analytics, companies can optimize the composition of project teams based on an analysis of peoples’ skills, certifications, and performance.

The list of AI use cases goes on, from forecasting to regulatory monitoring to ensuring compliance with procedures and requirements related to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), DFARs, CAS, and successfully responding to audit requests. For all these reasons, your GovCon has plenty of incentive to get the fundamentals right and derive maximum value from AI.

To learn more about the opportunities and risks of utilizing AI in government contracting, download Unanet’s recent white paper, “Maximizing the Impact of AI in GovCon Operations,” today.

Kim Koster is vice president of product marketing at Unanet, a software company that provides enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management programs for organizations in government contracting, architecture, engineering, and construction. https://unanet.com/