How Navigator Can Help You Define Total Addressable Market (TAM)

 Learning Objectives*

After reading this article, you will be able to:

• Use procurement volume data in Navigator to build your TAM story.
• Understand how relatable data, such as state term contracts, can strengthen your TAM business case.
• Use visualization to present and easily share your TAM findings.
   

*Total addressable market (TAM) has many definitions and meanings depending on who you ask. This training module is designed to help support your TAM efforts by showing you how to determine  past and present procurement volume for your specific technology solution.

For the purpose of this exercise, let’s imagine that you are a VP of East Coast Government Sales for a security provider, and you are building a case to justify sales expansion into the southeast region of the United States.

Define Your Sales Opportunity Search Criteria

Navigator has over 10 years of valuable categorized procurement data that can be manipulated by leveraging Navigator’s search filter functionality. Whether you want to evaluate the opportunity activity within a specific time frame or narrow in on a particular region, Navigator has multiple ways to slice and dice the total volume of opportunities in its database.



To start, using Navigator’s header menu locate and click on opportunities. 

Locate the search filters on the left-hand side of the page.

Filter by Status:
For purposes of this training, we will leave this section “unchecked”. By doing so Navigator will pull all open, closed and awarded procurement activity in its database.

Filter by Types:
Select all Types, except developing opportunities.

Filter by Categories:
Now select from Navigator's pre-defined IT categories to filter by solution best fits. As a security provider, I selected: 

• Software Systems: Security
• Hardware: Security Systems
• Network Telecom: Firewalls

Insider Tip: Our procurement analysts personally read and categorize every bid in Navigator.  The categories are intentionally broad and represent either a description of the whole project or a component. The best practice is always to be liberal with your category selections at first and pare down as you receive items that you do not want.
 
If you would like help selecting your categories, please contact memberservices@erepublic.com and a member of our procurement team will be happy to advise you!
 
Filter by Geography Region:

1. Select state.
2. Select the states in the southeast that you would like to evaluate: Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas.
3. Select the blue close button.

Filter by Levels:

1. You can choose to select one or more markets or jurisdiction types between different levels of government and education coverage (dependent on your Navigator license).
2. Since you are specifically a VP of Sales for Government, select all government.
3. Once your selection has been made, click close and continue.

 

Save YourSearch for Future Reference!  

Once you have defined your search filters, click the blue save button to open the saved-search settings. Here you will be able to title and save your search for future reference.
 
In the future you’ll be able to find your saved searches and open by clicking the downward facing arrow below to expand and view your previous saved searches. Your saved searches are also available to you on the right-hand side of your Navigator homepage.
 

 
Insider Tip: To initiate new search results, make sure to click the green search button any time that you adjust your search filters.

 

Filter by Published Date

Navigator defaults to last 12-months’ view. For a TAM project, you may wish to set a date range that goes back further than 12 months.

• To do so, click into the from box and select your starting date range. Then click the to box and select your ending date range.

Run Search and Notice Relatable TAM Support (for example: term contracts)

Now based on your search filters, you are ready to review the security-focused procurement activity in the southeast region of the United States.

Once you have defined and saved your opportunity search, hit the search button and a figure will appear showing the total amount of government opportunities (729) that showed up within your solution categories in the last 12-months. Reminder: Navigator defaults to a 12-month view unless you specify in the published date filter.

(Headers to the right of “Agency/Department” not shown on screenshot above: level, published and due.)

Above the results you’ll see several numbers in blue parenthesis. This is relatable data that Navigator automatically pulls based on your search. This gives you a whole other layer of intel that will be important to sales and marketers focused on the southeast region.

For instance, you’ll notice that based on your search filters, there are (127) state term contracts. This is another potential sales channel that is not reflected in the opportunity number. Since the bulk of procurement actually happens on statewide contracts, keep this as part of your TAM strategy in terms of potential resellers to partner with and/or a plan to get on expiring contracts.

 

You Can Download Your Opportunity Search Results

Our goal is for you to not only use this opportunity data within the Navigator tool, but to also export the intel so that you have the flexibility to do even further manipulation outside of the tool. 

To export your search, select the download button on the top right of your search results.  

Note: The quantity of data that you can download at one time is dependent on the level of Navigator that you subscribe to (50 records, 500 records, 1,000 records).

 

Let’s Visualize Your Southeast Opportunity Data 

Navigator’s visualizations tell a valuable sales opportunity story! Reminder, they are controlled by your opportunity search criteria. What’s exciting is that the data can also be downloaded as an image to include in your strategic presentations, etc.
 
To start, simply select the visualizations tab to the right of the search tab. The graphics will reflect our previously saved search named southeast 12-month opportunity.
 

 

 

What Does the Data on the Top of the Map Show Us?

Toggle between # of opportunities vs. dollar volume
The map can visually show you which states are hotbeds for your solution area and where you might want to deploy more sales personnel. This diagram shows Florida, Georgia and South Carolina as having the highest $ volume, but if you toggle to the number of opportunities, you’ll see that North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia and Florida have the largest volume of individual opportunities. This may justify more “feet on the streets” in these states.
 

Contract value: 
This number is the “minimum” contract value awarded based on your search filters. This is because it’s only the value of the contracts that Navigator has been able to capture, as many jurisdictions do not discuss the contract value of their projects. 
 

Total # of unique jurisdictions included:
This number shows you how many jurisdictions have been mentioned in the opportunities defined by your search criteria. This could be used to help evenly balance out territories for your teams and/or give you an idea of the amount of relationship building effort a certain territory may require!
 

Total # of vendors awarded one or more of the opportunities:
This gives you an idea of how many potential competitors and/or partners you may need to have a strategy for. This is also where state term contracts can be very helpful to leverage by partnering with resellers and/or making a plan to get on expiring contracts.

Average response window of those opportunities:
30 days is not a long time! This is where Navigator’s developing opportunities become valuable as they’ll give you a “first-to-know” window into emerging opportunities to give your teams time to build those relationships and influence procurements before they go to formal RFP.


 

Visualizations Further Down the Page Will Show You:

• Government vs. Education
• How opportunities have been released by year and/or the last 12-months
• Procurement with IT categories
• Opportunities by level of government

 

Insider Tips to Build Your Case!

1. Run another saved search, but this time change the published date filter to analyze procurement activity further back than just 12-months. You may find that this territory traditionally has more or less procurement potential based on historical data.
    
2. Do another saved search, but this time change the type filter to developing opportunities. If the bulk of the opportunity is in this category, you may want to increase your business development efforts to supplement the feet on the streets.
    
3. Do another saved search, but this time change the level filter to add education (if you have an EdTech Navigator license). You may find that there is a hot education market for your solutions, and consider standing up an education team in this region as well.

 

If you’d like further training, please contact us at memberservices@erepublic.com for assistance. Your ability to leverage Navigator’s state and local government intel to its fullest is important to us!