Instead, a large majority of services proposals now have bid periods of less than 30 days.The rise in popularity of task order contracts has occurred because of a fundamental change in the procurement process. With simplification in contracting, came the new idea that the Government would partner with industry in getting the job done. The large requirements contract would be used less and less. In its place, agencies would rely on smaller task order contracts competed among a limited number of companies that have an omnibus contract or “hunting license.” The theory is that this approach will keep competition manageable, while encouraging the vendors to provide more responsive service.In practice, the necessity to prepare quantities of task order proposals has provided a major challenge to the bidder community. With a bid period usually of 10 to 15 days, the bidders find themselves forever scrambling for talent to complete proposals. The question for the bidders is, do we pull the talent off of billable tasks, or if not, where can we possibly find outside talent that can start fast enough and provide a quality proposal?OCI has a solution to the task order proposal problem. Our company can provide qualified talent ready to start in one day. Usually, there are three or four types of talent needed to complete a task order proposal. This includes a solutions engineer, a technical writer, a desktop / production specialist, and a pricer. OCI can provide an entire task order proposal team in one day. Or we can provide a writer and a production person to work with the in-house engineers and pricers.If your in-house group is overwhelmed by task order proposals, you can contact Trina Holland at tholland@ociwins.com or at 703-689-9600. Or call 703-689-9605 after hours and on weekends. OCI can provide both the proposal process talent and solutions personnel qualified to assist with typical Government tasks.