ICN uses AI to make it easier for SME’s to win work in Defence
20 February 23
Industry Capability Network (ICN) and Canberra-based AI start up, reKnow, have made it easier for Australian business to create their own Quad Charts when tendering for Defence contracts. (Note you need to be a Premium Subscriber to access this program.)
Thousands of businesses, ranging from multinationals to family businesses and sole traders, compete for significant Defence contracts each year.
The Australian Department of Defence spends billions of dollars on contracts every year. This financial year, the Australian Government intends to spend $48 billion dollars on Defence, rising to $55 billion by 2025-26.
The challenge for most of businesses bidding for a slice of this lucrative pie is effectively using Quad Charts.
“Quad Charts are used throughout the industry to help professional buyers quickly work out exactly who your business is, what your business does, what sets it apart, and more,” ICN Limited CEO Warren Jansen said.
These single-page business summaries are fast becoming a requirement for companies tendering for Defence projects, but they can be difficult, costly and time consuming to develop.
“Summarising a business on a page and making it distinctive and unique is not an easy feat,” Mr Jansen said.
ICN’s network of experienced industry procurement and supply chain specialists, who introduce businesses to projects across Australia and New Zealand, have solved this challenge using Artificial Intelligence (AI), designed by reKnow.
“Through this project, we’ve developed AI-powered Quad Charts that virtually write themselves,” Mr Jansen said.
The new Quad Chart capability is available to ICN’s Premium and Be Compelling customers through ICN Gateway, the organisation’s online portal.
“The new Quad Chart system has taken all the magic and mystery behind Quad Charts and made it so easy,” Tim Daniels, project consultant with ICN Premium business, Hydraulic Controls, said.
“There are so many different varieties of people saying you need to do it this way, that way, what is needs, what it doesn’t need what to say what not to say. The ICN Gateway made it so much simpler. We literally sat back, filled in all the details and it’s there. It can do everything you need, and it saved us a lot of time and money.”
Hydraulic Controls is just one of more than 80,000 businesses who are members of ICN – all whom want to be considered for Defence contracts.
According to the CEO of reKnow, Suzette Bailey, ICN had captured “pages and pages of text about what each of their members did, their capabilities and products and services”.
“Our challenge was to use AI to understand this text, then transform, translate and summarise it into a few main points to populate a Quad Chart for each of the members. It’s a massive undertaking that will have real bottom line benefits for ICN’s members when they bid for lucrative Defence contracts,” Ms Bailey said.
“From supplying office equipment, drivers or base cleaning to military hardware and software. A single Defence project may involve dozens or even hundreds of contracted businesses, and now it’s easier for all of them to be considered on an equal battlefield.”
Using information from your ICN Gateway profile, and reKnow’s AI and knowledge management expertise, ICN developed four distinct Quad Chart designs, which can be auto-filled with draft content in seconds using AI.
“This new Quad Chart capability is a huge benefit to our members across Australia and New Zealand,” Mr Jansen said.
“With over $2.757 billion in contracts awarded through ICN Gateway in 2020-21, this new AI partnership will help our members become more competitive when bidding for Defence projects in Australia and internationally.”
Source: Defence Connect