The scheduled January release date of the $12.1B Army ITES 3S solicitation is getting closer every day. Project Director Thomas Neff has placed heavy emphases on “the ability for small businesses to compete on a level playing field and win work as a prime.”

Previous PEO EIS project director Kevin Carroll says, now that the multi step advisory process letters are issued, bidders should be finalizing their teams. Carroll adds, an important key is for bidders to be able to work most if not all of the nine task areas. Although Army experience is an advantage, Carroll says this: “Lack of Army experience would not keep me from bidding, especially if I had successful experience on other DoD IDIQ programs such as NETCENTS and ENCORE.”

Carroll provides the following insight into winning an ITES 3S contract: Max out your past performance and management. Make a strong functional response to the nine technical areas. Don’t forget, cyber is the top priority. Pricing is going to be a key factor.

It would not hurt to have someone who knows how to run capture and has a strong Army relationship and IDIQ. Focus right now is on being able to run a proposal team. Bidders have to demonstrate a robust ability to respond to task orders. Many of the current contractors were not as active in bidding ITES 2S task orders, and that is not acceptable for the winners of ITES 3S. They want to see how you are going to increase bidding on Task Orders.

Now is the time to find consultants if there are gaps on your team. Whether it is a consultant or a staff member, some of the critical tasks are as follows:

• A capture lead to complete building a broad and deep team
• A capture / proposal manager who can architect a winning story
• A past performance writer who can get you to max
• A tech writer who can help you tell a convincing Mission Support story
• A PTW analyst to help figure out a winning price

If you have questions, please contact us here or call us at (703) 689-9600.