What to Expect in 2014

Business will no doubt be faster in 2014 than it was in 2013, because of the following:  

  1. Congress has decided to pass appropriations bills totaling nearly $1.06 trillion dollars for FY 2014, which is slightly higher ($20B) than the $986 billion appropriations in FY 2013.

  2. More importantly, the appropriations will be completed in mid January.  This is the key to faster business in 2014, because the date of the appropriation is more important for proposal work than the size of the appropriations.  The proposal business was so dismal in 2013 not so much because discretionary spending was down a few percentage points.  Instead, the driving factor was not having the final appropriations passed until late March.  With only 6 months left in the fiscal year, there just was not enough time to get all the procurements needing a complex proposal through the funnel.  For the purposes of the proposal business, it doesn’t matter much that there are winners and there are losers among the agencies in the scramble for appropriations.  Because, on the average, whether the funding goes to Agency A or to Agency B, they still need RFPs and proposals to spend the funds. 

  3. The newfound harmony among the two political parties in congress is itself a factor positively affecting proposal work this year.  When there is great turmoil and strife in congress, as has been the case in recent years, this jangles the nerves of procurement officials and makes some of them more timid and hesitant to act. There is a large backlog of big programs that were pushed to the right in 2013 and this  will have to be processed through the procurement system in 2014

  4. There is a large backlog of big programs that were pushed to the right in 2013 and this  will have to be processed through the procurement system in 2014

So the bad news is that the debt problems will very likely not be attacked in FY 2014.  But the good news is that, there will be significantly more proposal business and a generally better market for proposal work in 2014.  As a result, our industry will experience more flush times; consultants will have less time on the bench; contractors will have more business; and government agencies will be able to do a better job of procuring what they really need.