I spent thirty years inside the federal government, with the FBI, DHS, the Navy, and the NSA, and I watched recompetes from the inside. Here is something contractors rarely think about: during a recompete, your website is being read carefully by people who are not buyers at all. They are your competitors. When a contract is coming up for renewal, every firm eyeing it studies the incumbent, and the incumbent’s own website is one of the first places they look. What you publish can quietly hand a rival the opening they were searching for.

Your Website Is Competitive Intelligence

To a competitor preparing to challenge you on a recompete, your website is a free intelligence source. It can reveal which contracts you hold, which customers you serve, where your work is concentrated, and where you might be stretched thin. A challenger reads it looking for your dependencies and your soft spots, the places where a sharp proposal could pry you loose. Most incumbents publish all of this without a second thought, treating the site as marketing while a rival treats it as a map.

The Incumbent’s Dilemma, and the Challenger’s Opening

If you hold the work, the instinct is to advertise it proudly, but on a recompete that pride can become a liability, telling challengers exactly what to attack and how concentrated your position is. The discipline is to show strength without drawing a map to your vulnerabilities. If you are the challenger, the lesson runs the other way. The incumbent’s website often tells you where they are exposed and where their story is thin, and a careful read can shape a sharper pursuit. Either way, the website is doing competitive work, whether or not its owner meant it to.

Most incumbents publish their position without a second thought, treating the site as marketing while a rival treats it as a map.

How to Handle It With Discipline

Think about your website the way you would think about any information that competitors can see. As an incumbent, project strength and depth without spelling out every dependency or concentration that a challenger could target, and be deliberate about what you reveal as a recompete approaches. As a challenger, study the incumbent’s public face for the gaps it exposes, and let that read inform where you press. The aim is to make your website work for your competitive position rather than against it, which starts with remembering that your rivals are reading too.

Thinking through what your site signals, to buyers and to competitors, is part of our government copywriting work, and it matters in every market on the Federal and Defense Hubs across the U.S. page, wherever contracts come up for renewal.

Questions I Hear From Contractors

Do competitors really study our website on a recompete?

Yes. When a contract is up for renewal, challengers study the incumbent, and the incumbent’s website is an easy, free intelligence source. They read it for your dependencies and soft spots.

As the incumbent, should we hide our contracts?

Not hide, but be deliberate. Project strength and depth without drawing a precise map to your concentrations and dependencies. Show that you are strong without showing exactly where to attack.

As a challenger, what should we look for?

Where the incumbent is concentrated or stretched, and where their public story is thin. A careful read of their site can reveal openings that shape a sharper pursuit.

Do you build the site, or only advise?

Both. We can carry the build in house, or give you a clear plan you run yourself. Either way you leave with a website that works for your competitive position, not against it.