Now that the appropriations have been passed for about 6 weeks, the period of fast proposal activity / business is coming soon. Most agencies have realigned their plans IAW their appropriations, and RFP releases are beginning to increase.
Business Volume during the Next 5 Months
With less than 5 months left in FY 2013, proposal business will likely be fast by late May. And it should continue to be relatively fast during the rest of the fiscal year. This is because the volume of procurements pushed to the right exceeds the negative effects of the sequestration. And agency procurement offices need to process as many of the postponed bids as their bandwidth will permit before end of fiscal year.There is no known statistical process that can accurately predict the volume of RFP releases in any period of time. Our guestimate is that, when all factors are combined, the result will be that proposal business during the next 5 months is fast but 10 – 12% slower than during the same period last year.
Business Flow during the Next 5 Months
Another question of high interest is: What will be the flow of business from month to month during the next 5 months? One approach to answering this question is to look at the pattern of business flow at our company OCI. We are large enough to experience a business flow pattern that usually approximates market conditions. The best year to pick when trying to find a pattern similar to 2013 is 2011. This is because the federal appropriations were enacted at almost the same (very late) date for both of these years. At OCI in 2011, April activity was still in the winter doldrums. May saw a significant increase and July was the peak month of the year with twice as much activity as April. August and September activity remained high but was lower than in July.
