Baseball, Beaches, Budget

By Tim Larkins, Market Intelligence Director

If you’re fixed on baseball and beach weather, you need to switch gears. Pennant races and temperatures aren’t the only things that start to heat up come spring.
April, May, and June are prime budget planning months for federal agencies.

As you read this, program managers are working tirelessly to spend their FY16 money, to budget for the spending of their FY17 money, and make requests for FY18 money.

Which means it’s time to fire up conversations around requirements, unsolicited proposals, and unfunded requests. Getting an early foot in the door in the budget planning process is key to selling technology to the government, and ensuring that technology requirements align to your solutions is the best way to secure business down the road.

The public sector sales cycle is a long one as we all know – and getting in sync with your program managers and end users in the springtime will increase the chances that a need for your solutions will make it into a requirement document or budget line item for the following year.

It’s also important to note that the way agencies request FY18 funding is going to be a bit different, as reported by Federal News Radio’s Jason Miller. Agencies are off the hook for submitting a formal budget to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) by September, but no doubt they’ll be thinking about programs that need more immediate action by the new administration. The Obama administration wants their plans by September.

Despite this change in the planning process, agencies will still be working with OMB to secure much needed program funding right now – so don’t miss your window of opportunity to strike while the iron (as well as baseball season and the weather) is hot.

Need help identifying where in government to target your solutions? Reach out today to immixGroup’s Market Intelligence team.