USAID's business forecast is a great tool for business planning. USAID Missions and Washington Bureaus list upcoming business opportunities with details about the timing, size, type of award, and a brief description in the business forecast. If you haven't already used the USAID business forecast, you have to check it out!
USAID most recently updated both the Mission and Washington forecasts on October 10, 2013. In the new forecast USAID carries over some FY2013 opportunities and adds new information about FY2014. (More on that in my next post.)
Kudos to USAID for creating and maintaining this forecast several times a year. It is a great tool.
The only thing I don't like about the forecast is its unpredictable posting schedule. Would you think to check out the business forecast page October 10? September 14? 21 August? May 22? April 24? Me neither, but those were the days on which USAID uploaded new forecasts this year.
To keep track of changes to USAID's forecast page, I use Change Detection, a
web page change detection service that monitors web pages you select and lets you know when those pages change. I have an alert set up so every time USAID changes the business forecast page, I get an email letting me know. It's a free service.
How do you keep track of the forecast?