How OnFrontiers Helped Tantus Win an HHS Contract

December 11, 2025 - Written by Derek Willis

The Growing Challenge in Federal Contracting

Federal contractors are facing intensifying competition. Deal volumes are declining while agencies increasingly favor best-in-class vehicles. Meanwhile, AI tools are lowering the barrier to submitting compliant proposals, meaning more competitors can produce technically acceptable submissions. In this environment, technical competence alone isn't enough to win.

A critical differentiator is understanding the customer's needs better than the competition—having relevant, reliable insight beyond what’s included in the RFP, such as underlying challenges, organizational dynamics, and strategic priorities that resonate with stakeholders and align with solution evaluation factors. This type of intelligence can be difficult to ascertain and may involve extensive time and effort validating, yet it’s undoubtedly an essential component to a winning strategy. Often with stringent time constraints and limited opportunity to engage with customer stakeholders, vendors lack the means to rapidly identify, assess, and collaborate with experts who have the necessary depth and breadth of customer knowledge as well as intimacy. 

Yet with the support of OnFrontiers, Tantus Technologies, Inc. was able to overcome such an insurmountable challenge by successfully winning a highly competitive IT application development services contract in support of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The Opportunity and Challenge

When Tantus pursued this contract, they brought over 10 years of HHS experience and strong technical capabilities. But they recognized a risk to their win strategy, which was to bolster their understanding of the customer's mission, program operations, and unique portfolio of applications used by the scientific community. In order to develop a compelling solution, Tantus needed a way to find this information. 

Precision Matching Delivers Results

Tantus submitted a detailed expert request through OnFrontiers' platform. They sought someone with recent, relevant experience who understood the customer’s key initiatives, existing challenges, and vision for leveraging transformative technologies to enhance public health programs. Their requirements were highly specific, covering a complex portfolio of technologies, data management, security, accessibility, and digital service optimization. 

OnFrontiers collaborated with Tantus to identify the ideal subject matter expert. Through two consultation sessions, OnFrontiers’ expert provided comprehensive intelligence on the customer’s technical environment, organizational dynamics, key factors, and skilled personnel. This intelligence enabled a successful capture campaign.

The Outcome

Tantus won the contract against four competitors, crediting OnFrontiers' expert intelligence as essential to their success.

This outcome demonstrates how OnFrontiers' expert consultation platform delivers measurable ROI through precision matching—connecting federal contractors with experts whose experience aligns exactly with their strategic needs.