Competitors leave a public trail: all unclassified Federal award data must be publicly accessible 1. Who Won Before shows past winners and award amounts 2.
Look at the shape of the market, not only the names. Bids2Bank's concentration score treats one company winning everything as the least attractive pattern 3, and with fewer than 3 awards 4 it reports "not enough history to judge" instead of a score 5.
What award data cannot show
Award data names the prime. As Bids2Bank's past-performance library notes, a subcontractor or joint-venture member never appears as the awarded recipient on a prime's USAspending record 6.
It cannot tell you which contract a new notice replaces either: Bids2Bank calls a possible incumbent a lead because a notice and an award are not linked by any identifier USAspending or SAM.gov publishes 7.
Competitors' proposals are not a source. A proposal submitted in response to a competitive solicitation shall not be made available to any person under the Freedom of Information Act 8. The one exception is a proposal, or any part of a proposal, that is set forth or incorporated by reference in a contract between the Government and the contractor that submitted it 9. And the procurement integrity rules bar anyone, other than as provided by law, from knowingly obtaining contractor bid or proposal information or source selection information before the award of the contract it relates to 10.
Write hypotheses, not predictions
Worked example. Contractor B finds that Company Y won 7 of the last 9 awards in its target NAICS code at one agency, all under $2 million, and that Company Z won the 2 larger ones. Contractor B writes: "Hypothesis: Y holds most of the smaller work; unconfirmed. Z may be the incumbent on the larger task; unconfirmed." It then lists the questions to test at the industry day.
Indented paragraphs are invented worked examples. Tool links open Bids2Bank and need a free account.