The Army dream of having a single interoperable tactical network gets a huge boost with the coming release of the GTACS II RFP, scheduled in or about February 2018. Less than 200 years after Samuel Morse sent the first telegram, GTACS promises to bring instantaneous communications to the battlefield worldwide. Enabled by [...]
Nearly every year, the battle over appropriations creates great angst in the contractor community. Who will the winners and losers be? For proposal professionals, the question as to when the appropriations will be completed is even more important than how large they will be. When the appropriations are late, there isn’t enough [...]
The appropriations for the balance of fiscal year 2018 almost certainly will include a healthy increase in spending and will be passed this year. This is a breath of fresh air after what has been a flat year for business developers at many contractor companies. Why are we looking at such a [...]
During late September 2017, OCI conducted a survey assessing opinion as to past and future volume of federal RFP releases (2016 – 2018). Proposal consultant firms surveyed included the following: AOC Lohfeld Associates OCI Proposal Development Consultants Shipley Associates Winning Solutions Win-Pros Respondents were asked to rate the speed of the market [...]
Addressing a Challenged Market In this article I attempt to address the question: How can BD and proposal groups help their companies counter a down market and earn more revenue? First, let’s look at the reasons why the market is challenged. And then we will look at ways in which we can [...]
As guardian of the nation’s inventions and innovations, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is entrusted with keeping the cutting edge of America’s technological progress and achievement razor sharp. WHO PUT THE SCOTCH IN SCOTCH TAPE? -- Richard Drew of 3M Co. invented cellophane adhesive tape in 1930. Legend has [...]
Give Me My Favorite Dish: FISH! -- Fish supply the greatest percentage of the world's protein consumed by humans. The next piece of the $3B NOAA PRO-TECH behemoth is nearly upon us. There is confidence the Enterprise Operations Domain – administrative services – RFP will come out on or near the [...]
Russell Smith and Lee Cooper During the past 30 years, we have frequently been asked, “how much does it cost to prepare a proposal?” Back in the day, the generalization was often made that proposal prep costs 2% of the contract value. However, RFP requirements and contractor cost recovery approaches vary so [...]
Back in the day, I was working a four-month assignment on a large system rollout. It was to manufacture, load, configure, and install 45,000 desktops. I was tech volume manager. Customer was the Loral division in Gaithersburg, MD. This business unit had been IBM Federal Systems in a previous era. And would [...]
During the past six years, most industry and Government leaders have joined in lamenting the use of lowest price technically acceptable (LPTA) contracting. However, a recent survey completed by the Washington Technology (WashTech) journal has shown that this practice is still widely used. In this article I discuss the findings presented in [...]
