Tapping the Goldmine of Public Information

Certain government sites are a wealth of information. Take the U.S. Government Accountability Office, for example. The agency is charged with studying programs and expenditures of the federal government, and is widely regarded as the investigative arm of Congress.

On this particular occasion, I visited the GAO site to find out more information on reports of lax internal inventory controls at the Veterans Affairs Department that resulted in 123 IT items going missing in the past year.

I searched reports with the keyword 'inventory' and found Tuesday's GAO testimony about VA to Congress, and far more. There was information about inadequate systems, controls and procedures for preparing government consolidated financial statements and the need to improve the Department of Defense supply chain with linkage to outcomes, transformation of business operations, and reexamination of logistics governance and strategy. And in a report about property management at NASA, GAO addresses whether NASA's control environment and internal controls over NASA-held equipment provide reasonable assurance that these assets are not vulnerable to loss and misuse and all equipment costs are appropriately recorded in the agency's financial statements.

Dated within just last couple of months, this information and much else is listed -- a goldmine for VARs looking for opportunities to sell supply chain management solutions into the federal market. Type in another keyword -- security for example -- and find thousands of more links to reports and congressional testimony.

Speak to any knowledgeable source in the federal market and they'll tell you that to be successful, a contractor has to get in front of the opportunities, rather than respond to bids. For that to happen, the contractor has to understand the pain points of the agency and the federal regulations that influence government buys.

Perusing the GAO reports won't necessarily land solution providers contracts, but the knowledge that can be gleaned from these types of publicly available resources certainly arm them with valuable ammunition.