When you’re the incumbent, you possess a significant advantage over your competitors in winning a contract recompete. Your unique position offers several key benefits:

Deep Understanding of Contract and Customer

Your intimate knowledge of the existing contract and customer allows you to:

  • Tailor your new solution precisely to meet your customer’s evolving needs
  • Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of contract intricacies, customer requirements, and potential growth areas
  • Showcase your ability to adapt and improve based on past experiences

Proven Track Record

Your performance history on the existing contract provides:

  • Substantial evidence of your capabilities and reliability
  • Concrete examples of successful delivery and problem-solving
  • A solid foundation for projecting future performance improvements

Data-Driven Advantages

Leverage your wealth of contract-specific data to:

  • Design an enhanced solution based on detailed insights about the contract, customer, costs, and capabilities
  • Provide compelling evidence of your past performance excellence
  • Illustrate how you’ll deliver an even better solution in the next contract term
  • Demonstrate superior understanding of contract nuances compared to competitors
  • Support specific proposals within your solution with real-world data

Tailored RFP Responses

Utilize your unique position to:

  • Craft responses that directly address the customer’s known pain points and aspirations
  • Incorporate specific examples and metrics from the current contract to substantiate your claims
  • Highlight your proven ability to meet and exceed contract requirements

While it’s crucial to focus on the customer’s future needs rather than simply reiterating your previous solution, your incumbent status provides invaluable insights and evidence to strengthen your proposal. By effectively leveraging this information, you can present a compelling case for why you remain the best choice for the next contract term.

But You’re Probably Compromising Your Advantage

While you know the customer and have an in-depth understanding of their requirements danger lurks around the corner…

Challenges in Leveraging Incumbent Information for Recompete Proposals

Despite the potential advantages of incumbency, many proposal teams struggle to effectively utilize contract information in their recompete proposals. Several common obstacles contribute to this issue:

Time Constraints

  • Late initiation of recompete preparation leaves insufficient time for thorough data collection and analysis
  • Pressing deadlines often force teams to prioritize answer writing over comprehensive information gathering

Data Management Issues

  • Critical information may be lost, forgotten, or stored in formats that are difficult to collate
  • Essential data types, such as customer satisfaction metrics or strategic impact assessments, may have never been systematically collected

Communication Gaps

  • Data holders may not fully grasp the urgency and value of sharing and analyzing information with the proposal team
  • Front-line staff and managers, who possess valuable insights, are often overlooked or unaware of the significance of their day-to-day observations

Operational Disconnect

  • Improvements and initiatives implemented during the contract period, which could serve as compelling evidence of innovation, may go unreported
  • The proposal team’s ability to leverage this information depends on the operations team’s capacity to capture, organize, and preserve it effectively

Information Withholding

  • In some cases, potentially embarrassing or negative information (e.g., past performance issues) may be deliberately withheld from the proposal team
  • Misguided assumptions that the customer has forgotten about past problems can lead to the suppression of relevant information

Lack of Strategic Data Collection

The absence of a systematic approach to gathering data that specifically supports recompete efforts, such as customer satisfaction metrics or evidence of how the contract work has contributed to the customer’s strategic goals.

To maximize the incumbent advantage, organizations must address these challenges proactively. Implementing robust data collection and sharing processes, fostering open communication between operational and proposal teams, and maintaining a comprehensive record of contract performance and innovations are crucial steps in preparing for a successful recompete proposal.

Overcoming Yourself (or Strategies for Effective Data Utilization in Recompete Proposals)

To maximize the incumbent advantage and avoid common pitfalls, proposal teams should adopt the following strategies:

Early Engagement

  • Initiate collaboration with operations teams and data-holding departments at least 6 months before the expected RFP publication
  • Allow ample time for data collection, analysis, and verification

Comprehensive Data Analysis

  • Examine data from multiple perspectives to uncover meaningful insights
  • Create timelines and combine different data sets to reveal long-term trends and build compelling narratives

Example: Uncovering a Powerful Performance Story

A proposal team discovered that:

  1. KPI targets were consistently met throughout a 4-year contract
  2. Work volume had doubled during this period
  3. Pricing had not increased proportionally to volume

This analysis revealed a story of flexibility, efficient scaling, and cost-effectiveness that wouldn’t have been apparent without thorough examination of multiple data sources.

Open-Minded Information Gathering

  • Initially collect and collate information without preconceived notions
  • Allow the data to reveal insights rather than searching for specific answers

Operational Collaboration

  • Engage with operational staff to explain the importance of both qualitative and quantitative information
  • Foster an environment where valuable insights can emerge organically

Proactive Data Collection

  • Implement new measures or data collection methods, even if only for a short period
  • Conduct customer or end-user satisfaction surveys, recognizing that even last-minute data is better than none

Solution-Focused Evidence Gathering

  • Identify specific aspects of the proposed new solution
  • Seek out information and evidence that supports the solution’s suitability, effectiveness, and deliverability

RFP-Aligned Data Review

  • Once the RFP is released, revisit collected data to identify evidence supporting specific customer questions

By implementing these strategies, proposals teams can more effectively leverage their incumbent position, presenting a compelling and evidence-based case for contract renewal. This approach ensures that the wealth of information available to incumbents is fully utilized, creating a significant advantage in the recompete process.