In This Week's Newsletter:

• Opportunity Spotlight of the Week: DAF SEIC III

• Four To Follow: Four Interesting Pursuits

• Capture Corner: Revenue per Employee and BD

• Pricing Insights: Cost Accounting Systems

Opportunity Alert – DAF SEIC III

Contact Katie: [email protected]

Department of the Air Force, Systems Engineering and Integration Contract (SEIC III). 

The Air Force is seeking a contractor to support the development and sustainment of a mission planning system of systems, including multiple mission planning environments (MPEs). This $350M full and open/unrestricted effort is scheduled for release in June 2026, with a potential award date of September 2026. This opportunity may be released via GSA MAS or OASIS+. Contact Hinz Consulting for any Business Development, Competitive Analysis, Graphics, Price-to-Win, or Proposal support, and continue to monitor SAM.gov and your eBUY portals for any updates to the procurement timeline.

Four to Follow

1. Department of War (DoW), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), Foundation Digital Twin Auto Feature Extraction (FDT)(AFE). On March 5, 2026, the Contracting Office issued an RFI seeking industry input on how best to utilize available AFE capabilities to support NGA operations. Responses are due no later than 5:00 PM ET on March 30, 2026. The final solicitation is expected to be released around May 2026, with a potential award date of November 2026. The opportunity value and competition type are currently unknown. Continue to monitor SAM.gov for updates on this opportunity.

2. Department of the Navy (DON), Command, Control, Communications, Computer, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Sustainment III. The Navy needs a contractor to provide services, including field services representatives (FSR), fielding, training, supply chain management, and maintenance support. This $250M small business set-aside opportunity is expected to be released via SeaPort NxG around the end of March, with a potential award timeframe of April 2026. Continue to monitor SAM.gov and your SeaPort NxG portals for any updates to this opportunity.

3. Department of War (DoW), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), Human Resources Management II. On March 5, 2026, the Contracting Office issued an RFI seeking industry support for human development across all human capital processes and programs, including the management of regulations, procedures, and forms to help NGA achieve its mission and goals. Responses are due no later than 5:00 PM ET on March 20, 2026. The final RFP for this $63M effort is expected to be released around April 2026, with a potential award timeframe of September 2026. The competition type for this effort is currently unknown. Continue to monitor SAM.gov for updates on this effort.

4. Department of the Air Force, Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) Operations Sustainment and Support IDIQ (BOSS 2.0). The Department of the Air Force is seeking a dedicated contract to provide deployed payload operations and sustainment, including operation, maintenance, and support of BACN airborne payloads and related ground equipment in both CONUS and OCONUS locations. The final RFP for this $3.6B opportunity is expected to be issued around July 2026, with an estimated award in February 2027.

Revenue per Employee and BD

Contact Nick: [email protected]

If you’re in GovCon business development, you already focus on pipeline, win rate, and the number of bids submitted. But there’s one downstream metric that instantly reveals whether your BD engine is elite, average, or quietly eroding the company: revenue per fully burdened employee (revenue/FTE).

Pair it with the overhead percentage (indirect costs — G&A, fringe, facilities — as a % of total revenue), and you have a diagnostic tool that:

• Identifies pursuits that either promote or hinder progress  

• Provides you with solid data to eliminate margin killers early

• Enables you to speak CEO/CFO language when you need to shape the budget, secure no-bid approval, or request more resources

The Tiers: Where Does Your Company (and Your Pipeline) Stand?

Here’s what the landscape looks like in 2026 (benchmarks from over 50 mid-tier GovCons, along with public data from SEC filings, earnings calls, and trackers like Growjo/ZoomInfo):

Real Benchmarks: How the Great Ones Get There.

• Prime Contractor 1 (Great Tier – IC/Cyber Focus) has an estimated revenue of about $7–8B in 2025, based on investor estimates and TBR commentary. The company reports approximately 18,000 employees. This results in a revenue per FTE of roughly $389K to $444K. The overhead percentage is around 50–55%, inferred from EBITDA margins of 20–25% in its mission-IT portfolios. Its business development strategy avoids competing for enterprise IT commodities and instead emphasizes its cleared workforce as a key differentiator. It focuses on areas such as cyber, GEOINT, and C4ISR, where it has significant expertise, and can leverage acquisitions primarily to enhance customer access rather than just for revenue growth.

• Prime Contractor 2 (Great Tier – Mission-IT Lines) has approximately $12B in revenue (FY2025 SEC filings). It employs around 36,000 people. Revenue per FTE is approximately $333,000. Overhead percentage ranges from 55% to 60% (up from 18–20% operating margins in 10-Ks). The business development playbook includes: a VoLT innovation incubator, showcased quarterly to agency CTOs; process driven capture teams with 12–18-month shaping cycles; embedded account executives who solve problems rather than sell; and PTW models benchmarked against historical rates.

How You (the BD Professional) Leverage These Metrics

1. Use Revenue/FTE As A Pursuit Filter: Before spending time on a pursuit, ask: “If we win this at our proposed price, will it increase or decrease company revenue/FTE?”

   • $50M at $190K/FTE? Consider an early kill and redeploy to the $30M OTA, projected at $380K/FTE.

   • Mention it in leadership meetings: “Our average is $195K/FTE. This pursuit lowers us; the other one over here adds $20–30M at current headcount.”

2. Use Overhead % to Protect Margins and Avoid Bad Deals: When pricing considers a 10% drop to be more competitive, but overhead is high, you can push back, “Overhead is already 76%. Dropping the price further pushes us negative after indirects. Let’s walk — we can’t feed the overhead monster.”

3. Build Your Personal Elite BD Playbook

   • 5-Question Pursuit Scorecard (use this before greenlighting any capture):

     1. Clear technical discriminator that the customer values?

     2. Shaping influence in the last 12 months (white paper, demo, working group)?

     3. Contract type T&M, OTA, or sole-source follow-on?

     4. Projected revenue/FTE > company average by 20%+?

     5. Can we price to win without pushing overhead % higher or margins negative? → Only pursue if 4–5 yes answers.

   • Pipeline hygiene ritual: Monthly purge the bottom of 40% P-win/low-margin junk — your weighted pipeline value almost always rises.

   • Shaping cadence: Dedicate 2–3 hours weekly for non-sales touchpoints such as CTO briefings and white-paper feedback. Track how many convert to high-PWin or sole-source — that’s how Prime Contractor 2 maintains $333K+/FTE.

   • Post-award pricing debrief: After each win or loss, ask, “How close were we? What would PTW have predicted?” Use this feedback to improve your next capture plan.

4. Speak Leadership Language When You Need Support: “We’re at $195K/FTE. If we shift just 20% of the pipeline toward higher-margin work like Prime Contractor 1’s IC focus, we’d increase to $240K/FTE — roughly $30M more revenue at current headcount without hiring. This pursuit drags us down; the OTA over here lifts us.”

Quick Self-Check for BD Professionals This Week

• What is your company’s current revenue per FTE? (A quick estimate: last year’s obligations divided by headcount.)

• Which 2–3 pursuits in your pipeline would most likely increase that number if won?

• Which one should you kill or de-prioritize right now?

• When was the last time you had a non-sales conversation with a customer CTO/PEO?

The BD leaders who master revenue/FTE + overhead % stop being “bid responders” and become revenue architects. They win the right work at the right price — and the company fights to keep them.

Which pursuit are you reevaluating this week? 

Cost Accounting Systems

Contact Dr. Tom: [email protected]

For companies working in the federal contracting world, having an approved cost accounting system (CAS) isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a must if you want access to better opportunities and fewer headaches.

1. It Opens the Door to More Contract Types
If you only have a basic accounting setup, you’re mostly limited to firm‑fixed‑price (FFP) contracts. But for more complex work, the government often uses cost reimbursement or time and materials (T&M) contracts. To compete for those, the FAR requires contractors to have an accounting system capable of properly tracking and assigning costs. Without an approved system, you’re basically shut out of a big chunk of the federal market.

2. It Reduces Risk and Makes Audits Less Painful
An approved system helps you clearly separate direct costs (tied to a specific project), indirect costs (like overhead and G&A), and unallowable costs (such as entertainment or lobbying).
Passing a DCAA or DCMA review means fewer surprises down the road, including:

• Costs getting rejected because they weren’t tracked correctly

• Payment delays or suspended invoices

• Serious legal trouble if the government thinks it was overbilled

In short, good accounting keeps you compliant and out of trouble.

3. It Helps You Price Smarter
Beyond compliance, a solid accounting system gives you real insight into what your work actually costs. You can calculate accurate wrap rates and build bids based on facts instead of guesses. That means you’re less likely to price yourself out of a competition—or win a contract that ends up losing money.

At the end of the day, an approved system turns accounting into a strategic advantage, builds trust with the government, and supports long-term financial stability.

There are situations in which an approved CAS is not required, such as FFP contracts, commercial item acquisitions (FAR Part 12), some small business set-asides (cost-plus awards), and CAS coverage thresholds (depending on estimated contract value).

• March 12th: AFCEA NOVA Naval IT Day 2026 in Chantilly, VA

• March 18th: Navy Information Warfare Industry Day 2026 in Springfield, VA

• March 16-17th: 2026 Air Force Contracting Summit in Reston, VA

• March 24-26th: Cyber Workforce Summit in Washington DC

• April 9th: Fed Expo 2026 in Washington DC

• April 13-16th: Space Symposium in Colorado Springs

• April 22nd: 2026 Digital Transformation Summit in McLean, VA

About Hinz Consulting

Hinz Consulting provides services across the full business development cycle:

• Proposals

• Capture

• Price To Win

• Competitive Intelligence

• Strategic Pricing

• Production

• AI Services

• Training

• BD Transformation 

• Process/Methodology 

• Tools and Template

• Small Business