Let's talk about it in the context of a company that is going to be making a product or has services specific for the government, such as a software enterprise solution. Let's use that as an example.
If a company has the Canadian government or an agency of the Canadian government as its first or second customer, that pays huge dividends to that company's then being able to go out and use that reference client to secure further clients, particularly in the international marketplace as opposed to a very small firm looking in their backyard.
Think about it in terms of the ability to scale. If I'm a company and I have a large contract with a large customer, and I can prove that my technology works, is secure, and is meeting the needs of that customer, then I can secure larger customers on a global scale. I can grow faster and actually scale my business faster as a result.