Lessons from the Field: Delivering on a $17M Subcontract with a Three-Person Team
What happens when a $17M procurement contract scales midstream, the deadline gets moved up by six months, and your team is only three people? You don’t panic. You build smart systems, negotiate hard, and make every spreadsheet work overtime. This is how we did it — and what we’d do differently next time.
When Industrial Management Services (IMS) was awarded a ~$17M subcontract under Lockheed Martin’s prime contract with the Navy, the scope was clear: procure hundreds of mission-critical components, track every dollar, and deliver on time.
What wasn’t clear at the time? That the team responsible for making it all happen would stay lean—by design—for nearly three years.
Until May of this year, the entire procurement operation was run by just three people: IMS’s accountant, their president, and our team at Bee Social Solutions. We stayed lean intentionally. The contract began around $8M and gradually scaled as Lockheed’s needs became clearer. With a manageable load, we prioritized building the right systems—ones that could flex as the contract expanded.
Those systems became the foundation of our success.
We built custom Excel dashboards to track 900+ items by status:
To Be Ordered, Ordered, In Transit, Delivered, Open Issues, Questions, Requoting, and No Longer Needed.
Each round of funding had its own tab but shared the same core structure—allowing real-time tracking and visibility for every stakeholder.
We established internal workflows between Bee Social and IMS for:
Vendor quoting and funding request cycles
Payment approvals and coordination
Weekly client-facing status updates
Clear documentation for every step
We managed all purchasing, quote analysis, shipment tracking, and savings reconciliation. Every invoice, wire, and procurement decision flowed through a system designed for speed, clarity, and accountability.
As the scope increased and the deadline moved up six months—from June 2026 to December 2025—we brought in one additional part-time team member (a retired IBM vet). That decision allowed us to meet 90% of deliverables ahead of schedule, with only 10% delayed by vendor-side issues.
The pressure was real—especially during periods when funding rounds required multiple re-quotes due to approval lags. But the systems held. Weekly status calls with Lockheed gave them a clear view of project status. Our proactive communication built trust. And our focus on pre-payment negotiations created both admin efficiency and over $200,000 in documented savings.
This was a lean operation by necessity—but it became a case study in what’s possible with the right systems, clarity of roles, and a commitment to excellence.
Because the solution to every overwhelming contract isn't more people. It's better systems.
