Do you know the difference between information and knowledge?

If so, do you understand why this simple difference can have a massive effect on the important “bottom line impacting” decisions that you take?

In our post “Is your Prime Contracting Business protected from these 3 Big Data Risks? ” we covered the most common areas that cause businesses pain when looking to utilize the benefits of Big Data in their planning, strategy and business decision making.

Here we go one step further and discuss what companies can do to acquire the much needed insight to harness the power embedded in raw federal spending data.

Why Knowledge really is Power

The traditional do it on-your-own approach towards big data is favored as a first step by many organizations. This manual approach often can tend towards increasing inaccuracy over time, and should be avoided if possible. Besides being time consuming, it becomes cumbersome over time and inevitably fails to sustain itself. If you set out to do this yourself, remember it is a shortsighted approach at best.

"free data does not translate into free knowledge" Ashok Mehan.Fedmine.US

Picture the scene ….. time is running out, the deadline for submission of your bid is fast approaching, the clock is counting down. Sweat beads are clearly visible.

You need one last missing piece of the puzzle to give your bid the best chance of success, but you know you are not there yet. You know you can easily leave the competition trailing …. but you are stuck ….

…. you find yourself searching at the very last minute….any technical details will do….but you know you are drowning in data, wasting precious hours sifting through multiple websites, clicking away page by page, scanning until your eyes get blurry, yet no signs and no answers.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Successful organizations account for the time they spend researching the right data that provides the kind of information they can turn into knowledge. That produces accountable and efficient delivery of services
 to customers.

If that knowledge is easily accessible from one common source by all people in an organization, it enables faster and better consensus.

And with consensus, execution of business strategy becomes easier, and eagerness to address the customer higher.  

Providers of such knowledge in the federal sector are categorized as companies that provide true “federal market intelligence”

Federal Market Intelligence

When information is needed, companies first turn to a source they trust. A trusted, familiar source that consistently provides information they need, which is easily accessible in one place, and always accurate and reliable.


The greatest value from an investment made by any organization in a market research tool should minimize time to research information while enabling it to arrive at quality decisions. Competition is always going to be fierce, and the speed and velocity of the business environment is only going to get more challenging. A market research tool is no longer a choice, it is a must have.

Used over a period of time, cost of such services becomes less compared to the knowledge provided.

Market Intelligence allows you to view situations “downstream” effectively reducing the lag that can cause you to play the usual catch up role with their peers and raising levels of market intelligence positions organizations to foresee changes and prepare to respond to them with greater ease and higher degree of success

Some of the types of knowledge that can be acquired by using a Federal Market Intelligence Resource include -

• Opportunity Information 
• Identification of patterns and trends 
• Comprehensive marketing intelligence - real time info
• Customer and competitor profiling 
• Contact Information  
• Simplification of complex raw information
• Reliable, targeted knowledge

Organizational dependence on dynamic information is at an all time high.

Organizations nimble enough to adapt to market changes can ensure they receive quality information without any hiccups. Meanwhile, the do-it-yourself folks will feel stuck, shackled by the sunk costs in computer hardware, software, personnel and above all their vested time that they know is all but lost.

Through necessity, this kind of information needs to be procured from firms having successful models for delivering high quality dynamic information, with a proven track record over a reasonable amount of time.

The heavy burden of owning a non-core business function can become a bottomless expense pit and can be devastating.

Without this burden, organizations can execute with greater ease, and reduce overall costs associated with acquiring key information.

Intelligence As a Service?

Building in-house specialized solutions to achieve reliable data aggregation requires skills that often underestimate the inherent difficulties associated with the task.

This can easily distract an organization from serving its core mission.

This realisation has led to the rise of companies offering data interpretation services. In our next post we take a look at “7 ways Business Intelligence gives Prime Contractors the competitive edge in the Federal Marketplace”.

Does the promise of Big Data sound too good to be true? Take a look at our post “Is your Prime Contracting Business protected from these 3 Big Data Risks? ” to make sure you are informed before you commit