In March of 2020, the United States enacted nationwide lockdowns to combat the growing pandemic. At the time, Bidscale was helping a defense health customer build the RFP for what would eventually become a $1.4 billion digital transformation contract. This would have been difficult even under the best of circumstances. The challenge grew exponentially when the team lost access to industry days, faced difficulties facilitating office calls, and ran into major shortcomings in our collaboration infrastructure. SAM acted as a one-way bulletin: the government could speak, but it could not listen. Meanwhile, email was neither efficient nor equitable since siloed communications created information asymmetry. We were flying in the dark with our market research capabilities crippled.

In our efforts to solve this problem, Bidscale helped create HIVE.gov and the original HIVE Community. Modern social networking paradigms streamlined communications between the government and industry. A single, public communication plane enabled fair and accessible vendor engagement. Government could easily post status updates and conduct market research; contractors could provide feedback and ask questions just as quickly. At the height of the COVID-19 lockdown, HIVE unlocked a new mode for government and industry to build great RFPs together, 24/7, in real-time.

Then, something unexpected happened. Contractors began joining the platform not just to talk to the government but to talk to each other. The ‘Teaming & Partnering’ channel became HIVE’s most active network; hundreds of companies and thousands of professionals engaged with each other to form partnerships directly on the platform. Contractors took advantage of HIVE’s marketplace of potential partners and embraced the exclusive focus on federal contracting discussions. We witnessed introductions turn into casual conversations, then NDAs, teaming arrangements, and eventually joint proposal submissions. Both government and industry benefited from the higher quality of teams formed through this digital matchmaking process.

Ultimately, the legacy HIVE platform began to show its limits. The initial launch was a rush job to meet original timelines, and the platform was rapidly hacked together using off-the-shelf, generic communication tools. Government lacked purpose-built market research tools necessary to enhance its interactions. Industry was limited by the dissemination of data via file attachments rather than more modern analytics. As the community grew, so, too, did the need for a more robust cyber posture. There was still so much value to unlock for the community, if only the right platform provided the right canvas.

Bidscale Connect is purpose-built from the ground up to address this need. It is designed to provide both intelligence and community, to both government and industry. Starting from scratch means we are losing certain capabilities during our transition. For our legacy HIVE members, we appreciate your patience through our Beta and look forward to serving you new features and experiences. Bidscale will be launching the refreshed, dedicated ‘HIVE Community’ and ‘Teaming & Partnering’ spaces on Connect by Q1 of 2023. In the interim, please continue the conversation on our current flagship HIVE initiative: DevMAC. For our new users, we invite you to join us in executing the PEO 3.0 strategy and other major federal initiatives.

The launch of Connect is also our exit out of semi-stealth mode. We are excited to announce that Bidscale has been awarded a 3.5 year contract by the Program Executive Office, Defense Healthcare Management Systems (PEO DHMS), to prototype the digital procurement experience for defense health technology. Our approach is simple: 1) bridge the divide between industry and government, 2) create intuitive, purpose-built federal procurement workflows, and 3) foster a thriving federal contracting ecosystem.

We are early in our journey, and there is much work ahead to achieve a transformational B2G engagement model. Our ears are wide open, and we’d greatly appreciate any feedback on how to best serve your federal contracting needs. At Bidscale, we take our mission seriously, and believe that our support of procurement digitization will accelerate government innovation. Thank you for the opportunity to help strengthen our defense industrial base; we look forward to pressing forward into the future of federal contracting, together.

-Tony Kwag, CEO/Founder

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