GTM engineering and RevOps for defence and dual-use companies
Defence sales run on public procurement: tenders that take years, framework agreements that turn into revenue one call-off at a time, consortiums with primes and partners, and compliance steps your own team has to clear. We build the CRM, pipelines and reporting that keep all of it in view, with civil and defence business reported apart.
- 80+CRM implementations delivered
- 6 languagesfor delivery, including German and English
- 2 weeksfrom first call to work starting
What is RevOps for defence and dual-use companies?
RevOps for defence and dual-use companies is the revenue operations work that turns long public procurement into a process you can run and forecast: tenders and framework agreements tracked from pre-tender to call-off, consortium roles on every bid, account plans across agencies, civil and defence pipeline reported separately, and compliance steps visible as deal gates.
Many defence and dual-use companies we meet have strong technology and a pipeline that lives in a bid team's spreadsheets. Tender deadlines sit in calendars, framework awards are celebrated as if they were orders, and nobody records which prime or partner a bid depends on. Civil and defence deals share one forecast, and the export-control and screening steps that hold a contract back are invisible until the week it should have closed.
Checkpoint GTM is a Berlin-based RevOps and GTM consultancy and HubSpot Platinum Partner. We design the revenue model with your sales, bids, partnerships and finance leads, build it into your CRM, and hand it to a named owner. Your compliance and security teams decide what the CRM may hold; we build to that rule. We work in HubSpot and Salesforce, in German, English and four more languages.
Good fit
- Companies selling to defence ministries, armed forces, procurement agencies, primes or system integrators, with sales cycles that run for quarters or years
- Teams whose revenue depends on public tenders, framework agreements and the call-offs that follow them
- Dual-use companies that need civil and defence pipeline, order intake and revenue reported separately
- Suppliers that bid as prime, as subcontractor or in consortiums and need one view of every partner a deal depends on
Not the right fit
- Export-control, classification or legal advice: your compliance and security teams own those decisions, and we record only the status of each step
- Handling classified information: we do not work with classified material, and the CRMs we build hold no classified or controlled technical data
Six defence and dual-use revenue problems, and what we build for each
The same patterns come up wherever a company sells to public defence customers, primes and civil markets at once. Each play ends in something running in your CRM and data stack, not a slide.
Tenders that run for years
The problemA defence opportunity starts long before a tender is published and continues long after the award. Framework agreements set a ceiling but guarantee no orders, so the forecast either ignores them or counts the whole framework as revenue.
What we buildStages from pre-tender engagement to submission, award and contract, framework agreements recorded with their call-offs, and a forecast that keeps awarded framework headroom apart from orders actually placed.
Consortiums and primes nobody can see
The problemMany bids depend on a prime, a subcontractor or a consortium partner. Teaming agreements live in email, the CRM shows one company per deal, and nobody can say which open bids rest on a partner who has not yet committed.
What we buildPartner and consortium records with their role on each opportunity (prime, subcontractor, consortium partner), the teaming agreement as a stage gate, and pipeline reported by your role in the bid.
One customer, many agencies
The problemA single public customer is a ministry, procurement offices, armed services, programme offices and the units that use the product. Relationships sit with individual salespeople, and an account plan exists only in someone's slide deck.
What we buildAccount hierarchies that map the organisational units of each customer, relationship coverage per unit, and account plans in the CRM with owners, next steps and the procurement events each unit is expected to run.
Civil and defence in one forecast
The problemDual-use companies sell the same technology to civil and defence customers on very different cycles. Mixed in one pipeline, the forecast is unreadable, and the board and investors ask for both numbers separately anyway.
What we buildA civil or defence segment on every account and deal, separate pipelines with their own stages and exit criteria, and pipeline, order intake and revenue reported per segment, each deal counted once.
Compliance steps that stall deals unseen
The problemExport-control checks, end-user documentation and security screening can hold a contract back. Your compliance team owns them, but sales cannot see where a deal waits, and the forecast assumes a close date nobody has checked.
What we buildStatus-only gates in the deal process for each step your compliance team owns, with the team as owner, reminders and stage dates, and reporting on how long deals wait at each gate. The CRM holds the status, never the underlying documents.
Trade fairs and funding programmes that never reach the CRM
The problemDefence trade fairs, industry days and public funding programmes produce many of the best conversations of the year. Business cards stay in bags, meetings go unlogged, and funding applications run outside the pipeline.
What we buildEvent pipelines with meeting capture and follow-up tasks for every fair, funding programme applications tracked with deadlines and owners, and reporting on the pipeline each event and programme produced.
How we build a defence and dual-use revenue engine in four phases
The same sequence for a company preparing its first defence tenders, a dual-use company separating civil and defence business, or a supplier adding primes and partners to an existing setup.
Diagnose
Interviews with leadership, sales, bids, partnerships, compliance and finance; a review of the CRM, bid trackers, framework records and how order intake is reported today. Output: a gap list, the data rules your compliance team sets, and the processes to fix first.
Design
Account and organisational-unit model, the bid process from pre-tender to award and call-off, partner and consortium roles, civil and defence segmentation, compliance gates agreed with their owners, and the reports leadership and the board will see.
Build
Pipelines, properties, gates, ERP connections, automation and dashboards go live in the CRM, tested with real bids, frameworks and orders before anyone relies on them, and checked against the data rules agreed in the design.
Run and hand over
A weekly bid and pipeline review, a monthly order intake and backlog view, training for sales, bids and partner managers, and a trained owner on your team. Documentation sits in the CRM, next to the data it describes.
The revenue metrics defence and dual-use boards and investors ask for
Eight metrics, each with one definition and one source. Anything that still needs a spreadsheet to produce goes on the build list.
- Order intake and book-to-bill. Order intake as the value of binding contracts and call-offs signed in the period, excluding framework ceilings that commit no orders; book-to-bill as order intake divided by revenue for the same period, taken from finance.
- Backlog and framework headroom. Backlog as contracted order value not yet delivered; framework headroom as each framework's awarded ceiling minus the call-offs placed, reported apart because a framework guarantees no orders.
- Tender pipeline by stage. Open bids by stage and expected award date, unweighted and weighted with stage probabilities agreed with finance, split by customer type.
- Bid win rate. Tenders won divided by tenders decided (won plus lost), with withdrawn bids and cancelled tenders counted separately, by customer type and by your role in the bid.
- Civil versus defence pipeline and revenue. Pipeline, order intake and revenue reported per segment, with each deal counted once under the segment recorded on it.
- Sales cycle length. Days from first qualified contact to contract, by customer type (public customers, primes and integrators, civil buyers) and procurement route.
- Time in compliance gates. Days deals wait at each step your compliance team owns, such as export-control checks or security screening, measured from stage dates, never from the step's content.
- Partner and consortium pipeline. Pipeline and order intake where you bid as prime, as subcontractor or with a consortium, reported separately from direct bids.
GTM engineering for defence and dual-use companies: the systems behind the process
We build on the systems you already run and inside the data rules your security team sets. These are the pieces defence and dual-use companies ask us for most.
- CRM as the account and bid recordHubSpot or Salesforce configured with customers and their organisational units, partners and consortiums, one pipeline per motion, and stage definitions sales, bids and finance all accept.
- Tender and framework trackingPublished tender notices, submission deadlines, awards and framework call-offs recorded on the deal with owners and dates, and reporting on where bids stand and which frameworks still have headroom.
- Partner and consortium recordsPrimes, subcontractors, integrators and consortium partners with their role on each bid, teaming agreement status, and partner pipeline reported next to direct bids.
- Compliance gates, status onlyStatus fields and stage gates for the steps your compliance team owns, with owners and dates, and documentation of what the CRM may hold and what stays in your controlled systems.
- ERP and order dataOrders, deliveries and invoiced revenue read from ERP into the CRM in one direction, so order intake, backlog and book-to-bill come from one source, with finance staying the system of record.
- Reporting and AI automationBoard and investor dashboards per segment, research on public tender notices and target organisations, meeting summaries, and AI automation your team can inspect and switch off, working only on the business data the CRM holds.
Defence and dual-use work we have done
Anonymised, like every client on our industry pages: the kind of work, never the name or anything that would point to it.
- Tenders and frameworks tracked to call-offFor a defence company, a bid pipeline from pre-tender engagement to award, framework agreements recorded with their call-offs, and a forecast that separates awarded framework headroom from orders placed.
- Civil and defence pipeline, reported apartFor a dual-use technology company, every deal marked civil or defence, each account recording the markets it serves, a pipeline per segment with its own stages, and a board report that shows both without counting a deal twice.
- Consortium roles on every bidPrime, subcontractor and consortium partner roles recorded on each opportunity, teaming agreements as a stage gate, and partner pipeline reported next to direct bids, for defence and dual-use companies.
- Compliance steps as visible gatesFor a defence company, the steps its compliance team owns added to the deal process as status-only gates, so sales sees where a deal waits while the documents behind each step stay outside the CRM.
In-house hire, generalist agency or Checkpoint?
| In-house hire | Generalist agency | Checkpoint GTM | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to start | 3 to 6 months to hire and ramp | Weeks, after a proposal round | Within two weeks |
| Defence and dual-use context | Depends on the one person you find | SaaS playbooks built for short, single-buyer deals | Tenders, frameworks, consortiums and civil versus defence pipeline modelled in the CRM |
| Cost | €120K+ a year for a senior GTM hire | Often billed by the hour | Projects from €15K, retainers from €6K a month |
| What you get | A single operator's view, often without data engineering support | Campaigns or a CRM setup, rarely the data behind both | The operating model plus the built system: CRM, tender and framework tracking, partner records, compliance gates, reporting |
| Main risk | Key-person risk if the hire leaves | Handed back without an owner or documentation | Needs a named owner on your side to take over |
Three ways to work with us
Fixed-scope project
A diagnostic, a tender and framework pipeline, a civil and defence segmentation, a consortium and partner setup or an order intake and backlog report. Scoped and priced before we start.
€15K to €90K · fixed scope · one accountable lead
RevOps retainer
Ongoing pipeline, bid reporting, automation and enablement work after the build, with a monthly plan agreed with your sales, bids and finance leads.
€6K to €25K a month · monthly plan
Fractional Head of RevOps
A senior operator embedded in your team who runs the forecast and bid reviews, owns board reporting, aligns sales, bids, partnerships and finance, and helps hire the permanent lead.
From 10 hours a month up to 30 hours a week
Questions defence and dual-use companies ask us
What is RevOps for defence and dual-use companies?
It is revenue operations for companies that sell to defence ministries, armed forces, procurement agencies, primes and civil markets: tender and framework pipelines from pre-tender to call-off, consortium roles on every bid, account plans across agencies, civil and defence business reported apart, and compliance steps visible as gates. It makes long public procurement forecastable.
How do you track public tenders and framework agreements?
As stages and records on the deal: pre-tender engagement, the published notice, submission deadline, award and contract, each with an owner and a date. Framework agreements keep their awarded ceiling and every call-off placed under them, so the forecast shows orders and remaining headroom separately and never counts a framework award as revenue.
How do you handle consortium bids and prime-sub partnering?
We record each partner's role on the opportunity, whether you bid as prime, as subcontractor or as a consortium partner, and make the teaming agreement a stage gate. Pipeline reviews then show which bids depend on a partner who has not yet committed, and reports split pipeline and win rate by your role in the bid.
Can you report civil and defence business separately?
Yes. Every account and deal carries a civil or defence segment, each segment gets its own pipeline and exit criteria, and pipeline, order intake and revenue are reported per segment with each deal counted once. Dual-use companies can then show the board and investors both numbers without a monthly spreadsheet.
Do you handle export control or security clearances?
No. Export-control, classification and security decisions belong to your compliance and security teams, and we give no legal advice on them. What we build is the process around them: status-only gates for each step they own, with owners, dates and reporting on how long deals wait. We do not handle classified information, and the CRM holds no classified or controlled technical data.
Have you worked with defence and dual-use companies before?
Yes. We have built tender and framework pipelines tracked to call-off, separated civil and defence pipeline for dual-use companies, recorded consortium and prime-sub roles on every bid, and added compliance steps to the deal process as status-only gates. Like every client on our industry pages, they are anonymised.
HubSpot or Salesforce for a defence or dual-use company?
Both work, and we build in both. HubSpot tends to suit companies that want one platform a lean team can own, with Enterprise custom objects for tenders and frameworks, single sign-on, audit logs, EU data hosting in Germany and Breeze AI agents included. Salesforce suits companies with complex enterprise processes and a dedicated admin team. Our HubSpot for defence and dual-use companies page covers the HubSpot setup in detail.
What does RevOps for a defence company cost, and how long does it take?
Fixed-scope projects run from €15K to €90K, retainers from €6K to €25K a month, and a fractional Head of RevOps from 10 hours a month up to 30 hours a week. A standard HubSpot build runs 6 to 10 weeks, a complex multi-hub build 12 to 16 weeks. Work usually starts within two weeks of the first call.
Running HubSpot? See how we configure it for defence and dual-use companies
Tender, framework and consortium objects on Enterprise, a pipeline each for bids, call-offs and civil deals, orders from ERP via Data Hub, linked accounts per business unit, SSO, audit logs, EU hosting and a portal that holds only what your security team allows: the HubSpot side of the same work, on its own page.
Start with a 30-minute RevOps call
Tell us how a bid moves from first contact to contract today, which primes and partners your deals depend on and where your order intake numbers come from. You get a straight answer on what we would fix first, and what can wait.
- A 30-minute call with your CEO, head of sales or head of business development
- A one-page scope: problems, plan, team, timeline and price
- Work starts within two weeks