Finding a customer for your product in the defense department is difficult: Who should they talk to? What is your attention?
Looking for clients from the Department of Defense
How to know if they have money to spend on your product?
It almost always begins with an executive office of the program.
The Department of Defense (DOD) no longer has all technologies, products and services to deter or win a war, for example, AI, autonomy, drones, biotechnology, access to space, cybernetics, semiconductors, new materials, etc.
Today, a new class of new companies tries to sell thesis products to the Department of Defense. Surprisingly, there is not a single telephone guide of the DOD available for the new companies who call the Department of Defense.
Then I wrote one.
Think of the Peo Board of Directors linked below as a “Who buys in the Government?” Phone book.
The DOD buys hundreds of billions of dollars of products and services per year, and almost all these purchases are managed by program executive offices. An executive office of the program can be responsible for a specific program (EC, the joint strike fighter) or a complete portfolio or similar programs (CE, the executive office of the Marine Program for Digital Services and Enterprise). Peos define the requirements and their hiring officers buy things (managing formal purchases, issuing requests for proposals (RFP) and signing contracts with suppliers). Programs managers (PMS) work with Peo’s subset and administer subset of the largest program.
Existing defense contractors know who these organizations are and have teams of people who track budgets and contracts. But startups? Most startups have no idea where to start.
This is a classic case of information asymmetry and is not healthy for the Department of Defense or the Startup Startup Defense Ecosystem.
That is why this Board of Peo.
This first version of the board lists 75 executive offices of the program and its executive officials and project managers/program programs.
Each program executive Office is headed by a program executive Official Who is a high -ranking official, whether a member of the army or a high -ranking civilian, responsible for the cost, schedule and performance of an important system or system portfolio, some are worth billions of dollars.
Below is a summary of 75 executive offices of the program in the Department of Defense.
You can download the full 64 -page document from the program executive offices and officers with the 602 names here.
WARNINGS
It does not depend on this document for precision or integrity.
It is likely to be incomplete and contain errors.
Military officers generally change their jobs every few years.
Programs offices are closed and new ones open as necessary.
This means that this document was outdated on the day it was written. Even so, repeat an invaluable starting point for new companies that seek to work with DOD.
How to use the PEO directory as part of a market strategy
While it is useful to know what executive crimes of the program exist and who attends them, it is also better to know where the money is, what is spent and if the budget is increasing, decreasing or remaining the same.
The best place to start is observing an overview of the entire defense budget here. Then look for those programs in the linked Peo directory. You can have an idea of whether that program has $ billion or $ million.
Next, take a look at the budget documents published by the DOD Comptroller –
particularly the budget documents P-1 (acquisition) and R-1 (R&D).
The combination of the budget document with this PEO Board of Directors helps you reduce which of the 75 executive offices of the program and more than 500 programs managers to call.
With some practice, you can translate the Toppline, Account or Program (PE) line into a sales market strategy, or at least one hypothesis or who to resort.
Armed with the description of the program (it is full of jargon and 9-12 months outdated) and the Excel download here and the appendix here — can identify objectives for sales with DOD where you are your best opportunity to fit.
People and organizations on this list change more frequently than money.
Knowing people is useful only after they understand their priorities, and money is the best proxy for that.
Future work
Ultimately, we want to give to startups not only who to call and who has the money, but which program officials are reception for the new participants. And that have become the management of the portfolio, which have tested OTA contracts, in addition to highlighting those who are doing some novel with metrics or results.
In the future, this project will be updated by Stanford Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation.
Meanwhile, send updates, corrections and comments to sblank@stanford.edu
Credit where credit is due
Clearly, the United States government intends to communicate this information. They have published links to the organizations of the Department of Defense here, even listing DOD social media accounts. But the list is fragmented and updated irregularly. Consistently, this type of directory has not existed in a usable format, until now.
Bass file: Air Force, Center for Gordian knots for national security innovation, Hacking for Defense, National Security, Navy |