As far as Hari Banda is concerned, it all comes down to getting a good education and having a better reputation.
Banda is the owner of Quadyster, a Bettendorf information technology company that struggled for years to find the right approach to doing business with the government. Contracts seemed always out of reach. Then, two things happened: the company found CIRAS, and it found a new source for electronic equipment.
Government buyers noticed.
“We needed a good supplier to have a better price,” Banda said. “Once they saw that we had readjusted ourselves, from about 2017 onward, we started winning. Now, we’ve got a good rapport with some of the organizations like the Air Force, and they keep coming to us.”
From January 2017 through the first quarter of 2019, Quadyster landed a total of 55 government contracts worth more than $2 million.
“Our niche is cloud computing,” Banda said. “We’ll help you move all your local services to the cloud, build security, and train you how to use it.”
Melissa Burant, a government contracting specialist with the CIRAS Procurement Technical Assistance Center, believes Quadyster’s success has come at least partly because the company routinely sends multiple employees to CIRAS educational events. Government contracting can be complicated, with systems and procedures that must be followed to achieve maximum effect.
“When you have just one person and they don’t get it, that can be difficult,” Burant said. “Half the battle is finding opportunities and understanding how to respond to them. With Quadyster’s combined experience, they can learn from each other. That goes a long way.”
Banda praised CIRAS for guiding Quadyster through its education.
“CIRAS is a wonderful organization,” he said. “Without your help, we wouldn’t have gone this far. . . . All your people are wonderful—so nice.”
Government contracting specialists “mentor and motivate,” Banda said. “They call you into their offices and spend time with you to look through something.”
“Online documentation can help you get there as far as understanding it,” echoed CBL Rao, Quadyster’s vice president. “But the personal attention and the motivating is what differentiates CIRAS from other organizations. They are available at any time to help us.”
> For more information, contact Melissa Burant at mmburant@iastate.edu or 563-726-9958.
A version of this article was published in the Summer 2019 edition of CIRAS News. To read more of that edition or others, please explore elsewhere on our website.