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O P I N I O N
A military approach
Breaking into new markets isn’t easy, but it can be done if you have a long-term, coordinated plan of attack.
F ollowing 30 years as an Army Engineer officer, I went to work as a market leader for architecture and engineering firm Mead & Hunt. My mission was to build a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers program from scratch.
National Guard and Army National Guard. Although the firm had won an architecture-engineering indefi- nite delivery, indefinite quantity contract with the Chicago District USACE in the 1990s, they’d only received five small task orders from this contract and decided not to pursue the recompete in 1998. After reviewing this history and the firm’s capabili- ties, my boss and I agreed to shift the focus to de- sign-build opportunities for a few key facility types, as well as design opportunities where our airfield, “While on the surface the skills I’d gained over a long military career were not immediately applicable to my new role, I found myself approaching this challenge as I would a military mission.”
While on the surface the skills I’d gained over a long military career were not immediately applicable to my new role, I found myself approaching this challenge as I would a military mission. Therefore, my first step would be a mission analysis – determining how success was defined within this context. Next, I assessed the target client opportunities, our firm’s capabilities and our competitors’ capabilities, otherwise known as intelligence preparation of the battlefield. Finally, I identified any potential teaming partners: I assessed and gathered friendly forces. In order to successfully break into a new market, we often find ourselves using our previous experience and skills in new and nuanced ways. Surviving in unfamiliar terrain requires a high level of adaptation. ❚ ❚ Mission analysis – what does success look like? When I joined Mead & Hunt in 2010, the federal program was primarily focused on work for the Air
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THE ZWEIG LETTER Janu
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