In the past few years, Microsoft has evolved from desktop software, to SAAS, Office 365, and now finally Microsoft 365. The cloud-based Microsoft 365 operates much like their previous desktop versions, but has additional features and expanded capabilities. These features were created to help users stay organized and be more productive as they work in real-time and collaborate from anywhere on any device.
In federal government contracting, the BD Team includes business development, capture and proposal management. Each player on your BD Team has unique responsibilities to support your company’s goal of winning the contract or bid.
Have you ever worn a black hat?
In GovCon, a Black Hat Review (Black Hat) is one of the color team reviews typically conducted during the capture phase. It is a formal process to 1) analyze the top competitors’ likely strategy and 2) identify solutions to improve one’s own strategy and positioning.
A Black Hat Review is one of the best tools to include in your capture and proposal management toolkit, as it allows you to think like your competition and expose the strengths and weaknesses of your team and your competitors.
Summer is here and while everyone is planning their vacation, OneTeam developers have been busy updating features and adding new functionality to our integrated pipeline, capture, and proposal management platform. Here are the highlights of our June 14, 2021 software release.
A meatball chart or capability matrix is often used by a prime contractor to evaluate potential partners and check for capability gaps. The proposed contract’s PWS (performance work statement) becomes a list of 'capabilities’ that is organized into a tabular format. Each potential teaming partners is sent this capability table or matrix, and asked to identify which capabilities their companies can provide or has provided. This has become the de facto method for teaming partners to communicate their company capabilities and contract experience.
But does a simple capability check give you enough information to build a winning team?
Congratulations! The RFP has finally dropped! As a capture manager, you identified a contract opportunity and spent 1 to 2 years building the winning team. You developed and executed a capture plan and you shaped the procurement. Now, you breathe a sigh of relief as your part of the job comes to a close, or does it?
Does the capture manager step aside as he or she hands over the job of winning to the proposal manager?
Federal government contractors are always looking for the next contract win – which begins by qualifying contracts, also called qualifying bids or opportunities. Qualifying is the process of evaluating an opportunity against your company’s past performance, corporate capabilities, and impacts to its current business. Successful contractors implement capture management plans to learn about the contract opportunity and the customer. Some of the best capture plans use an analytical process to gather data and evaluate the proposed contract opportunity to determine if the opportunity is a good fit for them and support the probability of win or PWin.
Many GovCon businesses rely on a GovWin subscription to supplement their business development (BD) team and build their BD pipeline or portfolio. There are other intelligence gathers, but it is the largest government contracting intelligence platform and has thousands of subscribers. A subscription is a major investment and allows users to identify government contracts early in the procurement cycle. GovWin collects data from thousands of procurements each year and packages that data into an easily accessible, searchable database. Experienced BD professionals know GovWin is a useful tool to help them execute their company’s strategic plan. But is having the GovWin subscription enough to win more government contracts?
As a business development professional are you starting from scratch each time you develop narrative or graphics for your government proposals?
While there is no such thing as a single government proposal template that works for all proposals, there are several things you can do to ensure that your team spends less time recreating work every time you submit a proposal.
Begin your proposal with templates and plans that can be customized and are easy to replicate and integrate into your proposal process. Working in concert with the capture manager, this will streamline the proposal development process and ensure accuracy in the proposal.
