Agency budgets will stay flat for the next few years as the government faces an $11 trillion deficit, presenting fewer opportunities for vendors to do business with agencies.
Vendors can separate themselves from the competition by identifying how they can save agencies money, said budget expert Stan Collender at INPUT’s Federal Market View 2010 conference today in Falls Church, Va. Vendors and contractors who know how to sell themselves to agencies can carve out a piece of the narrowing contracting pie, he sad.
You should expect extreme scrutiny on the programs you care about. There’s almost no way around it – there will be cuts and where there are increases, they will not be as big as in the past.”
Collender, managing director for Qorvis Communications, also said vendors should expect yet another continuing resolution for fiscal 2011. With politicians facing press to cut spending while avoiding impacting popular programs, it’s safer for members of Congress to vote on omnibus spending bills and continuing resolutions instead of individual appropriations bills.
We may be very much in the era when individual appropriations are not enacted. I don’t mean not enacted in time, I mean not enacted. Period.”
