By Frank Konkel, Respondents found some recurring challenges were offset by an improvement in acquisition talent. The federal government’s procurement professionals are bullish about improvements to federal acquisition, according to survey released Wednesday, but it definitely isn’t because they’re high on innovation. Rather, the ninth biennial Acquisition Policy Survey, compiled by the [...]
Paul Sanders One of the funniest and most challenging experiences of my proposal career occurred when I traveled to Saronno, Italy for a job. Most proposals are challenging by nature, with the intense planning required just to get there (flights, hotels, rental cars), then actually pulling it off (flight delays, lost luggage, [...]
James Keys We all know that customer intimacy is the “gold standard” in preparing to write a winning proposal. Yet getting significant insight into the mind of the customer is one of the most difficult challenges we face. We all have worked programs where we were able to gain valuable insight into [...]
Gary Everett Especially in this hacking era, the Proposal Manager must establish security protection processes to make sure the proposal is not compromised to competitors. This is important especially when subcontractors are on your team, but not exclusively, and may be participating against your team with other primes. To protect your work [...]
Vince O’Connell For any contract competition, evaluation criteria are always tied to the concept of minimizing risk. The lower the risk shown in an offering, the higher the Government will rate the proposal. This is particularly true for contract transition plans. The Government always seeks a carefully developed and well-resourced contract phase-in [...]
Ron Robins The executive summary is by far the most important section of the proposal, because so many of the Government executives and influencers ONLY read this part. Your Frame of Mind Psychologically it is better to first talk about the customer's issues and challenges. What is compelling them to go [...]
Bob Kucharuk, LTC-USA (ret) Anyone reading this knows the importance of compliance to a winning proposal. Here are some advanced tactics to increase your company’s pWin when preparing compliance matrices: 1. Create a compliance matrix table that includes the RFP’s requirements. Beyond including the Instructions typically found in Section L, and Evaluation [...]
In the battle to win more contracts all of us have daily decisions on how to invest our resources. Below are 7 easy ways to win more: Write your text at the 6thto 7th grade level to produce a proposal that is easy to read. Get early executive buy-in so you can quickly solve [...]
As the incumbent, you are in a unique position that gives you an advantage over your competitors in winning your proposal recompetes. You should have data from the existing contract that will enable you to easily win. However, the sad truth is that, incumbent proposal teams often lose competitions they could have [...]
Lee Cooper Cost to Prepare Federal Proposal The cost to prepare a federal proposal has always been high. Our experience suggests that bidders often spend the following amounts on the different types of proposals: 1. High end technical engineering services staff augmentation – 1.5% more or less. The bidder is providing [...]
