Your capture lead is using three common types of tools that serve different purposes: bid feeds, opportunity intelligence, and spend data. For a firm like yours bidding on janitorial services in both federal and state markets, you need tools that help you find opportunities and understand the landscape.
A bid feed that pulls notices from SAM.gov is essential for federal contracting because proposed contract actions expected to exceed $25,000 must be synopsized there (FAR 5.101(a)(1)). For state and local contracts, you will need to monitor the relevant state procurement portal for Ohio and Kentucky, as these are separate from SAM.gov.
"Opportunity intelligence" tools often aggregate data from various sources and may include features for tracking amendments, competitor activity, and deadlines. These tools can help you manage your pipeline and ensure you do not miss important updates. Given the deadlines involved in federal bids, like the 30-day response time for solicitations above the simplified acquisition threshold (FAR 5.203(c)), a tool that helps track these can be valuable.
Tools that track past awards, often called spend data tools, pull information from sources like FPDS and USAspending for federal contracts. This data helps you identify agencies that buy your services, the contract values, and who won previous contracts, which is crucial for market research and competitive analysis. For state and local, you would look for similar data on their respective portals or through public records requests.