Has AI Improved Your Federal Sales Processes

AI enabling your federal sales processes: Have you achieved expected ROI?

I recently read an article that stated only 25% of CEO’s have seen the expected ROI from AI. Besides this being a reminder of our need to continually set and manage expectations, it exposes broader consideration of what improvement, when, where, and how it is achieved.

Let’s first consider the human element. The ability and willingness to adopt and adapt AI is different for individuals and organizations, with progress being largely scenario-based and leadership-driven. Understandably, meeting expectations is subject to design and ability.

By now we have all encountered instances where AI and automation made a big difference when transforming manual labor intensive tasks, thus mitigating the impacts of human bias and fatigue. How does this then translate to a ROI scenario for Federal Sales?

Federal Sales: AI expectations have focused on generative AI for proposal content that:

1. needs fewer resources and takes less time to

2. build a more compelling proposal with

3. higher quality and greater discrimination that

4. increases win rates.

Less proposal cost with higher probability of success is a good ROI when the contract(s) is won! However, we are seeing that there are other cost considerations that are required to achieve success: AI platform training / data curation (LLM). AI platform user training (prompt engineering). Organizational change dynamics. Human in the loop adaptations (e.g., number of queries per proposal). Business process changes (Federal sales have significant business development and capture activities that feed proposals).

Shipley Model: Many companies have failed to recognize the impact and benefit of AI on the business process changes in the federal sales processes. Shipley taught us that opportunities were won before an RFP was released, which is all the business development and capture work leading up to writing the proposal. The proposal AI product is only as good as the capture AI content. AI is impacting both. Leveraging an AI tool for proposal development but not leveraging an AI tool for business development and capture is like buying a car without an engine and still expecting it to win the race!

So, consider how AI impacts business development, capture, and proposal development / review. Many of our federal processes have become routine. Are all the gate review formats still necessary? Can AI improve decision making and change the way we think about what is necessary in gate reviews for the decision? AI tools should work to improve your federal sales processes and achieve greater ROI. But first close your gaps!

Addressing Gaps: Businesses are discovering that AI is not a plug-and-play solution, it is a journey, requiring a shift in processes, culture, and mindset. Gap areas to close include:

1. Implementation is hard - firms need a systems integration approach to succeed

2. Talent is scarce - firms will need to groom AI-savvy staff (prompt engineers)

3. ROI is fuzzy - stakeholders have uncertainty about the AI return drivers

4. Lack of an AI ecosystem - firms need to establish the AI fit and function

What Now / What’s Next: The companies gaining the most value from AI tend to have:

1. Planned and adopted AI-enabled capabilities beyond proposal generation

2. A culture of experimentation and learning, encouraging AI-ecosystem creativity

3. Leveraged Open Source Data platforms and expertise with varied data types

4. An adapt / build / buy decision model for core and non-core AI enabling

   
   

The promise of AI is still very real. But achieving its benefits depends less on the technology itself and more on how it is adopted, embedded, and adapted.

What do you think? Has your organization seen the returns it hoped for from AI? Or are you still navigating the learning curve?

Dale Luddeke – Senior Partner,

AI Enabled Growth, Catapult Growth Partners