Four game-changing tech tools for defense contractors in 2025

Whether a defense contractor is supporting a military operation abroad or its own business operations stateside, success depends on ensuring people have fresh, reliable information so they can make well-informed decisions in the moment. Systems must be intelligent and synched, and data must be flowing unimpeded. There is no room for bottlenecks, inefficiencies, or errors.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what Katherine Fredlund encountered when she joined fast-growing Florida-based defense contractor SkyBridge Tactical several years ago as finance director. The culprit was obvious: inadequate back-office systems – specifically an expensive, unwieldy enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Fredlund quickly made it her mission to modernize the firm’s IT infrastructure, starting with the ERP system.

Having been in a similar situation with a previous employer, also a government contractor, this was familiar territory for Fredlund, who promptly began laying the groundwork for an ERP upgrade at the service-disabled veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) which employs nearly 150 people. “I was excited to help take the company away from the dark side, if you will, and bring them over to the light,” she says.

Living on the ‘dark side’ meant SkyBridge had to bear the high – and mounting – maintenance costs for a system that employees in the field and at the office loathed to use. “People were so averse to our ERP and its user interface that they just didn’t use it,” Fredlund says. It also meant real-time data was hardly that. Labor and expense cost data took weeks to travel from the field to the company’s ERP, making timely reporting difficult. Meanwhile, instead of using the ERP, the accounting team preferred to use a spreadsheet-based shadow cost-tracking system that required duplicative, time-consuming manual data entry. What’s more, the company’s goal of maturing into a midsized business would be extremely difficult to achieve under the tech status quo. A financial analysis supported that conclusion, suggesting the best move for the company would be to upgrade its digital infrastructure, starting with a new ERP.

A couple years after making the move to a new ERP, it’s ‘mission accomplished’ for Fredlund and SkyBridge. The information technology (IT) upgrade has given the company access to a range of powerful digital capabilities it previously lacked, and has translated directly into less employee frustration, more efficiently run and profitable projects, and better outcomes for SkyBridge customers.

As SkyBridge has discovered, today’s generation of ERP systems include here-and-now technology tools that defense contractors of all sizes and focus areas could be using to improve operational efficiency and project outcomes. One is artificial intelligence (AI). AI can bring value to defense contractors on a variety of fronts. It can help win more business more efficiently and at lower cost, by reducing the enormous amount of time and resources required to respond to complex and highly technical requests for proposals (RFPs). Today’s AI capabilities can enable a defense contractor to create a high-quality first proposal draft (the ‘pink team’ draft) for a federal RFP in a matter of hours, reducing average RFP time-to-draft by 70% and cutting proposal generation costs, which can run $50,000 to $100,000, in half.

On the business development side, AI can help uncover lucrative government contracting opportunities and then support decision makers in prioritizing pursuits by analyzing historical project and client data to help them zero in on projects that align with strategic priorities. Machine learning algorithms can even predict the probability of success for projects to help firms prioritize their pursuits.

On the project management side, AI tools can help a company with cost control by alerting decision makers to cost trends and potential overruns, providing recommendations for addressing them. It can provide insight from timesheets and payroll data for improved resource tracking throughout the project life cycle, and generate real-time insight into project progress, delays, milestones, budget variances, and resource utilization. Predictive analytics can help defense contractors optimize resources and anticipate labor shortages.

AI also can be a difference maker in meeting increasingly heavy compliance responsibilities. AI models can be trained to interpret regulatory language and alert companies to data disparities across systems and reports.

For government contractors to effectively conduct their business operations, they require modern software compatible with existing systems and supportive of office and field employees. This necessitates adopting an IT infrastructure with the following aspects:

• Pre-built software integrations to serve as the connective tissue for a seamless digital IT infrastructure. Integrations are the connections enabling multiple business software systems to effortlessly share data and function as a whole, without requiring extra steps or development work by the defense contractor’s IT team. Instead of bouncing from app to app and platform to platform to manage critical business functions such as finance, accounting, inventory, human resource (HR), and customer relationship management (CRM), pre-built application connectors enable an organization to create a single, enterprise-wide digital ecosystem that consistently generates insight to drive long-term business growth. Look for integrations that come secure and ready to implement at scale, and that automate processes and enable teams to work off a single source of truth and around a central set of key performance indicators (KPIs).
• A mobile app that field personnel can use in warzones, desert areas, etc., inside and outside the continental U.S. Today, firms can arm field employees with an easy-to-use mobile app connected to the ERP that enables them to enter expenses, hours, etc., offline, outside of communications range. As soon as they’re within comms range, the data automatically uploads to the system.
• Access to real-time data to keep project managers informed. The ability to get understandable, real-time reports on burn rates, cost utilization, employee utilization, and other project metrics is huge for project managers.

For defense contractors, these capabilities aren’t just nice to have, they provide a decided edge in the theater of battle and the theater of business.

About the author: Steve Karp is chief innovation officer for Unanet, a Virginia-based software company that provides ERP and CRM solutions for organizations in the government contracting, architecture, engineering, construction, and professional services markets.

SkyBridge Tactical
https://skybridgetactical.com

Unanet
https://unanet.com