Case study
Leveling the Field: How N-ovation Technology Group Wins with Intelligent Win
One search. One sharper bid. One five-year VA contract.
Executive summary
In May 2026, the Orlando VA Healthcare System opened a five-year voice and data cabling contract as a 100% SDVOSB set-aside. Most small businesses would have priced it on instinct and hoped. N-ovation Technology Group (NTG) ran the field through Intelligent Win first.
Before setting a single price, NTG knew who held the work, who was likely to bid, and what the VA had paid before. On August 26, 2026, NTG was awarded a five-year IDIQ with a $2 million contract maximum, one of 18 offers received. Fourteen days later, the first task order landed: $184,346 in funded work.
That is the promise of Intelligent Win, built by Kinetic. It puts the competitor and contract-award intelligence once reserved for primes with deep BD budgets in the hands of small businesses, at a price a small business can justify. Paired with NTG's SDVOSB certification, it turned eligibility into an edge.
- Contract ceiling
- $2,000,000
- Ordering period
- 5 years
- Set-aside
- 100% SDVOSB
- First task order
- $184,346
“Chuck and the Kinetic team have been in the trenches with us for the past year. Not as a vendor, but as an extension of NTG. Together we've chased, shaped, and won work that once felt out of reach for a company our size, and Intelligent Win is the latest proof of that commitment. On the Orlando VA cabling contract, it showed us exactly who we were up against: their past awards, their agency footprint, their pricing history. We sized the field, sharpened our bid, and won a five-year contract. As an SDVOSB firm, we already had the right to compete. Intelligent Win gave us the intelligence to win. For years, that level of insight belonged to the big players with big BD budgets. Now small businesses get it at a third of the cost. If you're a small business competing in the federal space and you're not using it, I promise you your competitors are.”
The small-business challenge
Small businesses lose federal bids they could win because they bid blind. Large primes know the incumbent, the likely bidders, and the price range before the RFP drops; most small firms find out at debrief.
- Expensive intelligence. Leading GovCon market-intelligence platforms carry enterprise price tags that many small businesses cannot justify.
- Limited BD bandwidth. At a growing small business, the CEO is often also the capture manager. There is no team to comb award data for every pursuit.
- Pricing guesswork. Without knowing who is competing and how they have priced before, small firms either leave money on the table or price themselves out.
- Set-aside complexity. The real competitor set shifts with each set-aside (8(a), WOSB, SDVOSB, HUBZone), so a generic competitor list misleads.
The result is an uneven field. The firms that can afford the data win more, which lets them afford more data. Small businesses need their own Moneyball moment: you can't outspend the big clubs, so you win by out-knowing them.
About NTG and the Kinetic partnership
NTG is a Dayton, Ohio-based managed service provider growing year over year in the federal market. It is an SBA 8(a) and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) company. NTG delivers Network Modernization, IT infrastructure, networking, and communications solutions to agencies including the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense, and holds a NASA SEWP VI and GSA MAS contract.
For the past year, Kinetic has served as NTG's business-development partner. Led by CEO Chuck Hodge and Ashley Burrow, the Kinetic team works alongside NTG on capture: identifying opportunities, vetting teaming partners, and building winning proposals. The relationship has grown from vendor to trusted partner, and Intelligent Win is a natural extension of it. Kinetic built the tool from the same capture discipline it brings to its clients.
The solution: Intelligent Win
Intelligent Win lets a small business look up any competitor and see how that company actually wins federal work. In minutes, a capture lead can answer the questions that decide a bid.
| Question before the bid | What Intelligent Win shows |
|---|---|
| Who is likely to bid? | Companies active in the same agencies, NAICS codes, and set-aside lanes |
| How strong is each competitor? | Contract-award history, volume, and agency relationships |
| Who holds the work today? | Incumbent and prior award details |
| What will it take to win on price? | Past award values to calibrate a competitive price |
| Who should we team with? | Firms with complementary past performance and certifications |
The platform turns hours of manual digging through public award data into a fast, repeatable step in every bid/no-bid and pricing decision.
Case study: how NTG sized the field and closed the deal
NTG won a five-year voice and data cabling IDIQ, with a $2 million contract maximum, with the Orlando VA Healthcare System by using Intelligent Win to understand its competition before setting its price.
| Agency | Department of Veterans Affairs, Network Contracting Office 8, Orlando VA Healthcare System |
|---|---|
| Requirement | J059 FY26 OVAHCS Voice & Data Cabling, main campus and outpatient clinics |
| Solicitation | 36C24826Q0448, released May 13, 2026 |
| Set-aside | 100% SDVOSB |
| NAICS | 238210, Electrical Contractors and Other Wiring Installation |
| Contract | IDIQ 36C24826D0039, awarded August 26, 2026 |
| Value | $2,000,000 contract maximum over a 5-year ordering period (base + 4 option years) |
| First task order | 36C24826N0897, $184,346, awarded September 9, 2026 |
The situation. The solicitation gave bidders roughly two weeks to respond. Only certified SDVOSBs could compete, but that still left a field of capable cabling contractors. NTG knew it could do the work. What it didn't know was who else was bidding, or what a winning unit price looked like across dozens of line items. Champions don't step onto the court without watching film, and NTG wasn't about to either.
What NTG did with Intelligent Win:
- Mapped the field. Searched the VA, NAICS 238210, and the SDVOSB lane to identify the companies most likely to bid.
- Profiled each competitor. Using their Company Profiles, reviewed their contract awards, VA history, and typical contract sizes to separate serious threats from long shots.
- Identified the incumbent. Pulled prior cabling awards at the Orlando VA via the Customer Profiles to see who the government had been paying, and how much.
- Calibrated the price. Used competitors' past award values and labor rate intelligence to set unit prices that were competitive without giving away margin.
- Sharpened the story. Built win themes around NTG's VA experience and its SDVOSB status, the gaps competitors couldn't fill.
The outcome. NTG submitted a confident, competitively priced quote and was awarded the IDIQ on August 26, 2026, one of 18 offers received. The first funded task order followed 14 days later, and NTG now holds a five-year ordering vehicle covering the Orlando VA main campus and its outpatient clinics.
Results and value
Intelligent Win delivers enterprise-grade competitor and award insight at a price a small business can justify.
| Before Intelligent Win | With Intelligent Win |
|---|---|
| Competitors discovered at debrief | Competitors known before pricing |
| Pricing based on gut feel | Pricing calibrated to real award data |
| Hours of manual research per bid | Minutes per competitor lookup |
| Enterprise tools priced out of reach | Priced for a small business |
| Reactive bid/no-bid calls | Data-driven pursuit decisions |
For a growing small business, the math is simple: a single win covers the platform many times over, and every bid after that is better informed.
Lessons for small businesses
Competitive intelligence is no longer a big-business luxury. NTG's experience points to four habits any small business can adopt:
- Know the field before you price. Run a competitor search on every pursuit worth bidding.
- Respect the incumbent. Profile who holds the work today before building your strategy.
- Price to win, not to hope. Anchor pricing to real award history.
- Partner well. The right capture partner and the right tools multiply a small team's reach.
Try it against a pursuit you already know.
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