Best industry wisdom is there will be minimal proposal activity during calendar quarter one of 2017.  This is based on historical numbers from the Professional Services Council (PSC) and from our company OCI records.  PSC Executive Vice President Alan Chvotkin said, “I think it likely the agencies will go slow from now through almost all of first quarter of calendar year 2017, especially when there is only a continuing resolution (CR) in place through April.”

Overall federal spending is expected to go up in 2017, much more so in Defense and not so in civilian programs.  This is a reverse of the last two years when there was an increase in services spending in federal civilian agencies.

Proposal activity is expected to increase in second quarter of calendar year 2017, particularly in the area of defense.   Congress will do everything it can to put a defense spending appropriation in place by late April or early May.  Then there will be the challenge of the DoD military departments/agencies needing to do 12 months of program execution in five months.

It is expected that some defense RFPs will move forward during first calendar quarter.  In enacting the CR just passed, Congress allowed agencies to spend at the fiscal year 2017 Budget Control Act (BCA) level.  But the DoD buying activities will likely release more RFPs because everyone knows the new administration favors an increase in military spending.  And civilian agencies will go slow, lacking direction, lacking new super-grade leaders, and knowing the administration will likely want to decrease their budgets.