Win Strategy Plan: Structure And Guidelines For Federal Bids

In the first five parts of this series we explained the importance of a structured analysis of your win probability and provided checklists for critically analyzing the opportunity, your customer, your competition, and yourself. In this final part we provide guidelines for preparing your win strategies and making a sound bid decision.

A win strategy plan is the document that turns all of that analysis into direction. It’s what tells your proposal team exactly how you intend to win, and it’s what gives your Chief Executive and Top Management the basis to approve resources and commit the company to pursuit. Getting the structure of a win strategy plan right, not just the thinking behind it, is what separates a deliberate bid decision process from a guess.

close up shot of an illustration giving an overview of win strategy plan

What Is a Win Strategy Plan?

The purpose of this section is to define content and general format needs for presenting a business opportunity Win Strategy Plan to the Chief Executive and Top Management staff for their decision and authority to proceed. This plan serves to initiate three actions: approval, commitment of resources, and communication of directions. Document length should not exceed 25 pages; oral presentation should not exceed 30 minutes exclusive of discussion.

This plan identifies and documents the analytical material, rationale, specific actions, responsibilities, and milestones that will enable actual performance to be audited against the plan. It communicates top management’s views and directions regarding solutions for customer needs, and provides management and marketing guidance to the program and proposal preparation team. Each element in the proposal itself will be developed to fully support the approved Win Strategy Plan.

Keep in mind: A win strategy plan must be dynamic. It has to be updated immediately as new information and events occur — treating it as a one-time document is one of the most common mistakes in strategic bid planning.

The plan comprises three parts, and each one builds a full picture of your business opportunity analysis and your path to a bid decision:

Part A: your presentation of your four analyses
Part B: your proposed strategies
Part C: your proposed approach to continue pursuit, plus top management’s approval and commitment of resources

Part A : Presentation of Analyses

Your presentation of the four analyses should follow something like the structure below. This is where win probability analysis gets consolidated into something leadership can actually act on.

This part identifies the opportunity and summarizes the pertinent results of your win strategy analyses. Think of this as the executive digest of everything that follows in Part A — it should be dense enough that a reader who only reads this one section still understands the opportunity, the stakes, and where your win probability analysis currently stands. A strong Analyses Summary references specific findings from each of the four analyses rather than restating that the analyses were “completed.”

This is a brief, broad description of the opportunity, financial considerations, sales potential, prime recommendation, and your company’s probability of winning. This section is often where a reviewer decides whether to keep reading in detail or skip to the Conclusions — so it should state your prime/team/subcontractor recommendation plainly, along with a defensible win probability figure, not a vague range.

Briefly summarize the key elements of your Opportunity Analysis. This should capture the contract’s scope, funding profile, incumbent situation, and any structural factors (set-aside status, contract vehicle, period of performance) that shape your business opportunity analysis and, ultimately, your bid decision.

Briefly summarize the key elements of your Customer Analysis. Focus on what actually drives this customer’s decision — budget pressure, mission priorities, past performance expectations, or relationships with the incumbent — rather than generic statements about “understanding the customer.”

Briefly summarize the key elements of your Competitor Analysis. Name the realistic competitive field, note where each competitor is strong or exposed, and connect this directly to the discriminators and deficiencies you’ll carry into Part B’s Marketing Strategy — this section should set up that later discussion, not duplicate it.

Briefly summarize the key elements of your Self Analysis. This is the place to be honest about capability gaps as well as strengths — a Self Analysis that only lists strengths gives leadership a false sense of your win probability and undermines the resource decisions made in Part C.

This section provides an opportunity to discuss interactions between other categories, or concerns not otherwise covered. Use it to flag where the four analyses reinforce or contradict each other — for example, a strong Opportunity Analysis paired with a weak Self Analysis is exactly the kind of tension that belongs here, not buried in a single section.

This section should address specific issues that need attention, such as additional information requirements, identification of candidate teaming partners and subcontractors, new hire disciplines, IR&D requirements, Customer Contact Plan, and specific actions needed by your top management. Treat this as your action-item list — each issue should have an implied owner and timeline, even if informal, so it doesn’t get lost between this plan and the tactical proposal planning that follows.

Identify the major conclusions reached as a result of the strategy analyses. This should re-emphasize your optimistic, pessimistic, and most probable win likelihoods, and your recommendation to continue to pursue this opportunity, to merely watch for additional developments, or to terminate your interest in the matter. This is the section leadership will scan first if they’re pressed for time, so the recommendation itself should never be ambiguous.

If your conclusion is to terminate this pursuit, then you should document this decision, file all information for future reference, and this will be the end of the matter. Don’t treat this as throwaway paperwork — a well-documented termination protects institutional knowledge for the next similar opportunity and prevents the same B&P dollars from being spent re-learning the same lesson.

Part A summary: quick reference for your win strategy plan

Section	What It Covers
Analyses Summary	Identifies the opportunity and summarizes results of your win strategy analyses
Overview	Opportunity description, financial considerations, sales potential, prime recommendation, win probability
Opportunity Analysis Summary	Key elements of your Opportunity Analysis
Customer Analysis Summary	Key elements of your Customer Analysis
Competitor Analysis Summary	Key elements of your Competitor Analysis
Self Analysis Summary	Key elements of your Self Analysis
Overall Analysis Summary	Cross-category interactions and concerns not otherwise covered
Issues	Information gaps, teaming partners, new hire needs, IR&D requirements, Customer Contact Plan
Conclusions	Optimistic, pessimistic, and most probable win likelihoods, and pursue/watch/terminate recommendation
Termination Documentation	Documentation and filing if the decision is to terminate pursuit

This is also where your bid/no-bid decision effectively gets made. If the analyses point toward pursuit, you move into Part B. If not, the Termination Documentation closes the loop and preserves the record for future opportunities.

Part B: Presentation of Strategic Approach

If your conclusion from Part A is to pursue the opportunity further, this part identifies your company strategies to be used in order to yield the highest probability of success. Strategy statements should be clear enough for subsequent tactical planning to meet your company’s objectives.

As the strategy plan matures and is periodically updated, it will develop well defined and approved strategy guidance into a tactical proposal plan or guide, with clear specifications for tasks, milestones, responsible people, and procedures.

Many companies think that their win strategy is focused only upon the technical (and sometimes management) issues. In actual fact, a complete strategic approach should encompass all areas that can influence your winning the contract, which include at least the five areas identified below.

Three criteria for an effective win strategy:

It must be unique to you — if your customer doesn’t give you the contract, he won’t get this benefit.

It must be important to your customer — if it’s not important to him, he won’t care.

You must be able to prove, in your proposal, that you will deliver as promised at a reasonable/acceptable price — if not, your customer won’t believe you, and you will lose.

Business Strategy

This strategy has to do with the opportunity’s effect upon your business. If it doesn’t relate to your business niche, then why should you pursue it? Therefore, you should specify and rank your business objectives and expectations in terms of the maximal involvement and benefits you expect to achieve, what you believe would be optimal, and what is the minimum that you would accept. This can include pursuing the opportunity as prime, as teammate, or as a subcontractor. It can also include your financial expectations such as large profits, modest profits, break even, or buy-in to establish your credentials for future business of this type.

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System/Product/Service Strategy

In this section you should specify the key elements and approach of your proposed offering or design concept (if known) and why it constitutes the best match with customer needs. Otherwise specify those system or product characteristics that are the probable key to matching customer needs. Which two or three of these should be emphasized and exploited?

Political Strategy

In this section, describe the political environment and identify key player attitudes. Strategic activities to implement these strategies are normally the purview of your top management or marketing people. This can involve key DoD personnel, Congressional representatives, Administration officials, ultimate users, and local political jurisdictions. Usually these contacts cannot be established overnight, and must be carefully initiated and nurtured over a long period of time to warrant the mutual trust needed. Be aware that you should also carefully consider “what’s in it for them” — I don’t mean bribing, of course — but be alert to legal benefits that you can provide, such as working on re-election campaigns, joint articles in technical and management journals, joint research programs, and so forth.

Marketing Strategy

In this section you should identify any discriminators and any deficiencies to be overcome, and your plan to exploit your discriminators and overcome your deficiencies. Specify what needs to be done to create the climate necessary for your company to win. This includes establishing your credibility, identifying and ranking factors believed to be influential with the customer for working the political scene, and for assessing and defeating competitors. This is also where early win theme development starts — the discriminators identified here become the seeds of the win themes carried through the rest of the proposal.

Pricing Strategy

Provide price-risk curves with appropriate recommendations for pricing. Such recommendations should include an ROI analysis. In addition, it should address side benefits that could consist of long-range benefits of penetrating a new market or offering the precursor of a new product line. The probable customer price and competitor price should also be considered. What do you think your customer will accept? What is your optimal price, and what is the lowest price that you will accept? Are you confident that the expected price is stable, or is it likely to be reduced because of DoD funding reductions?

Special Considerations

This section provides an opportunity for you to address any additional requirements or concerns not covered in the above sections.

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Part C: Approval to Proceed and Commitment of Resources

Since strategic planning should begin when a business opportunity is first perceived, lack of acuity and completeness of information is usual this early in the planning stage. Much of the data will be incomplete. The initial presentation and planning document should specify at the very least what is to be done to obtain more complete information. Note that approval of the early plan is not necessarily approval to bid, only approval to proceed to the next milestone. It may be approval to study the opportunity in more depth, report findings, and formulate recommendations at some clearly defined milestone, essentially a go/no-go decision process built into the plan itself.

Information should be presented to the extent necessary to carry out the plan. Additional items should be added as needed. This section documents the decision to commit company resources essential to success, and is presented in a “form” format:

Responsibilities: Who is in charge? Other key assignments (list if known).
Funds: Your company’s committed funds, other funds, total, and source(s) of both. Provide a funding vs. time graph.
Manpower: Total man-months, man-months by department, man-months from other sources (team associates, subcontractors, etc.), and critical skills. Provide a manpower vs. time graph.
Facilities: Existing company facilities and capital equipment, plus any new facilities or capital equipment required, with cost estimates and justification.
Schedule: A chart schedule for the planning period and follow-on effort, including key milestones, correlation with customer events, decision points, facility needs, and incremental funding gates, with specific metrics and dates for continue-or-terminate decisions.
Special Directions: A place to add special requirements as necessary.
Approval: Signature blocks and dates of approval.

How OCI Supports Your Win Strategy Plan

OCI’s Capture Strategy and Planning consultants build win strategy plans like this one as a core part of our capture support; not a one-off template exercise, but a living document we help update through the life of a pursuit. Here’s how we help:

Facilitate the four analyses: Opportunity, Customer, Competitor, and Self Analysis — so Part A of your plan is built on evidence, not assumption
Sharpen your discriminators and deficiencies: turning early Marketing Strategy insights into win themes that carry through the full proposal
Validate your win probability: stress-testing your optimistic, pessimistic, and most-probable win estimates before they go in front of leadership
Structure your resource ask: funds, manpower, facilities, and schedule — so Part C holds up to Chief Executive and Top Management scrutiny
Keep the plan dynamic: updating strategy as the solicitation, competitive field, or customer priorities shift, rather than letting the plan go stale after initial approval

We’ve guided this process across IDIQs, task order recompetes, and first-time captures alike, which is exactly why the three criteria for an effective win strategy (unique, important to the customer, provable at a reasonable price) show up in every plan we help build.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a win strategy plan in federal proposal development?

A win strategy plan is a formal document that presents a business opportunity to Chief Executive and Top Management staff for a bid decision. It documents the analytical rationale, proposed strategies, and resource commitments needed to pursue, or terminate, a federal opportunity.

What are the five types of strategy in a win strategy plan?

Part B of a win strategy plan covers five core strategy types: Business Strategy, System/Product/Service Strategy, Political Strategy, Marketing Strategy, and Pricing Strategy, plus a Special Considerations section for anything not otherwise covered.

How long should a win strategy plan document be?

Document length should not exceed 25 pages, and an oral presentation of the plan should not exceed 30 minutes, exclusive of discussion.

Who should approve a company’s win strategy plan?

A win strategy plan is presented to the Chief Executive and Top Management staff, who provide the decision and authority to proceed, along with formal approval of resource commitments in Part C.

Closing Thoughts

This concludes this six-part series on structured strategic planning. Obviously you will adapt these guidelines to the way your company operates. Yes, a structured strategic planning and bid decision process is difficult, but wasting scarce B&P funds on unreachable goals is simply foolish; ask Don Quixote.

At least conduct rudimentary analyses along these guidelines for major programs. I advise my clients to do these, and I assist them in developing their Competition Data Base and Win Strategies. Selfishly, I hope that you ignore these guidelines completely, if you are bidding against my client.