Transforming Government Contracting with the Power of AI

Join Michael LeJeune and Kim Koster, VP of Product Marketing at Unanet, as they delve into the transformative potential of AI for government contractors. With over two decades of experience in the GovCon industry, Kim shares practical insights on how small to midsize contractors can start leveraging AI tools like ChatGPT and Jasper to enhance productivity. Discover actionable steps for integrating AI into your business, from forming cross-functional teams to ensuring data security and process efficiency. Whether you're a seasoned professional or new to AI, this episode offers valuable guidance to help you navigate the AI landscape and improve your business operations.

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Read Transcript Here:

Michael LeJeune: Hey everybody, Michael LeJeune here with Game Changers for Government Contractors. I've got Kim here with me from Unanet. Kim, before we jump in and talk about the wild world of AI, why don't you give everybody a minute about who you are and what you do?

Kim: Okay. Well, I'm the VP for Product Marketing for Unanet, and I've been with Unanet for about seven years. Prior to that, I spent 21 years working for two of the big GovCon giants. At one point in time, it was Texas Instruments Defense that turned into Raytheon. Then I went to work for ATK, which became Orbital ATK, and now Northrop. So 21 years doing that as a finance professional, I really concentrated on project management, project accounting, and earned value management. And then for the last 14 or so years, I've been working for software companies that really help government contractors do their business better.

Michael LeJeune: That's awesome. And I was telling you right before we hopped on, I was at the 8(a) conference and met with Chris and a few other folks on your team. Some great folks over there at Uninet—love working with them and love being at the conferences with them. So, great folks. If you're out at a conference, definitely stop by the Uninet booth. You can see it a mile away. I love your booth, by the way; it's always really fun to go and check it out and see what you guys are doing. Let's get into this and talk a little bit about AI today because I think it's an interesting perspective. I think the only exposure most people have is ChatGPT. That's like AI to them—that's the whole world. And there's a lot of other things going on in that realm. Some people are looking at how they use it in their job, but not necessarily how they are packaging it or incorporating it in some way into their solutions. And I think that's a really interesting little area to take a look at. So maybe you can kick us off a little bit with like, maybe what are some of the easy ways for government contractors to start incorporating AI into their business?

Kim: Well, it's funny you talk about ChatGPT because obviously that's what all of us are hearing about and what all of us know about. And to be honest with you, for small to midsize government contractors, that's an easy win. They can go in and start looking at things like web copy, help with emails, help with any kind of content on RFPs, maybe an executive summary. I think ChatGPT, even though it's not the end all be all, is definitely a beginning point. And then other generative AI that's more verticalized, so things that are important, like say, to your marketing team or to your project team or your proposal team, you know, those are things that will definitely make a huge impact on government contractors down the road.

Michael LeJeune: Do you have a favorite AI outside of ChatGPT, like a tool that you use or a couple of tools that you usually recommend to folks?

Kim: So, I do use ChatGPT, but I also use a tool called Jasper. And that helps with all of our marketing content. It helps with our blogs, any kind of white papers. It helps with our campaigns. It's really a great tool for marketers. So that's my favorite right now. That's what I'm using.

Michael LeJeune: I always love to hear what people's favorites are because I just went over the holidays from the free GPT over to the paid version to see what was different. And when you get over in the paid version, you're like, what are all these apps? There's all these apps, whether it's images or, you know, you can create org charts and different things. There's probably like 15 of them that are in just the image side. And then you have the ability to create your own apps within the GPT to do different things. And that's an interesting take on it as well, as well as connecting it to other things like Zapier, all those other different tools that are out there. So it's really interesting to see where it's evolved, even just in the last year, on what you're able to do. Have you found like with Jasper that it is just a little bit better when you give it a prompt, like the response is just better, it's more high quality?

Kim: Yeah, and the more we've used it and the more information we've given it, the smarter it actually is. And it's kind of interesting. We hear people talk about it’s going to take your job away. Okay, well, I valued myself as a great writer—a blog writer, white papers, all that good kind of stuff—and I thought to myself, oh my goodness, this is going to change my job forever. It did change my job. It made my job much easier. I went in, I'm able to put that in. It still needs me. It still needs me to put in personas, to put in what my outline looks like, and it still needs me to check and see if it's correct. So, that was a very interesting application because you hear a lot of people talking about AI, oh my goodness, it's just going to take my job away. I'm not going to be needed anymore. I love that, and it’s definitely a personal example that I had to kind of learn myself.

Michael LeJeune: I think a lot of people, when they hear AI, they make the leap like almost immediately to the Terminator, right? Like they make the massive leap towards, oh, it's not just this computer thing. It's almost like it's going to power the robots that eventually take us over. And that's why, because it still does need your help. For me, I'm a writer, a content creator; I don't care how good I am at it. There are a lot of times where I'll open up something and I'm working on a project and I'm like, I either don't want to do it, don't want to start it, don't know where to start it. And it's almost like having a personal assistant that is like a writing partner to say, hey, this is what I'm working on. Get me started. And a lot of times I will use it to start a paragraph or a description for a podcast, and I may throw away 80 percent of it, but it points me in the right direction. I may take a lot of it. It really depends. It’s really helped me do my job faster so that I can do other things, is how I really look at it. So I'm definitely a big advocate. What in your mind are some steps to take to implement AI in a GovCon business these days?

Kim: Well, I think it's just like any other big activity, any other big pursuit; you're going to have a lot of change management that you're going to have to deal with. You're going to have a lot of people that say, I've always done it this way. I don't want to do anything new. That's standard and normal. But if I was going to look at the steps that I would take, I would form a Tiger team, and that Tiger team would need to be cross-functional. So you'd need to have people from your finance organization, your marketing organization. Definitely need to have somebody from your legal team, or somebody who understands the legalities of it, as well as project management. And then maybe it’s from your engineering or your manufacturing folks, whichever teams that you're actually having, depending on the work scope that you're doing. Then it would go off, and I would identify those systems that I really think I could leverage AI and do an honest, real honest assessment of that, and then figure out where I really need to make key decisions to improve the efficiencies of my business. Then I also want to hire people, you know, I want to make sure that I'm getting the right personnel and leaders that are going to embrace AI. So you'll see, like at Uninet right now, we're embracing AI across our footprint. Every organization is working on ways to make their jobs better and more efficient using AI. And the other thing is making sure your data's good. Without good data, you really don't have great learning for your AI tools. So really need to focus in on that. And the other thing from a GovCon perspective is making sure that you understand that your data is secure, and that you're safeguarding all that very sensitive information that you have to with CMMC and other requirements that we have. Then I have two more things on that if you don't mind, Michael. The other two are making sure that you understand that you're doing your process mapping of your activities that you're wanting to use with AI and improve with AI. And then plan that implementation. So you're going to plan that implementation, maybe across your ERP, your CRM, and then any other core tools that you may have. Not just looking at ChatGPT, but really starting to understand how those core business systems will incorporate AI and make your job easier and help you run your business better. And then you have to look for a tool, you know, and make sure you have the right tool for your business. And maybe ChatGPT is one of them in your tool bank, but then, probably some more focused in on your type of business or the type of activity that you're doing.

Michael LeJeune: Those are great suggestions. And I think when it comes to doing anything new, I know a lot of people don't like new, first of all, but the second part is anytime you're doing something new, one of the things I like about it is it usually requires you to identify what you're doing now, even if it's likely an informal process. And then you can recognize, like, why are we doing business this way? Are there six steps in order to get it over here? And there should only be three. It helps you clean up your processes, even if you don't move forward with it. It's a great opportunity to clean those up. And for me, one of the things that I always say is, just have fun with it. At the end of the day, the worst thing that's going to happen is you're going to learn something new. And that is never a bad thing.

Kim: Absolutely.

Michael LeJeune: Kim, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate your time, and I know everybody listening is going to enjoy this episode.

Kim: Thank you very much, Michael. I appreciate it.