In the first five parts of this series we explained the importance of a structured analysis of your win probability and provided checklists for critically analyzing the opportunity, your customer, your competition, and yourself. In this final part we provide guidelines for preparing your win strategies and making a sound bid decision.
Win Strategy General Guidelines — The Self Analysis
In the first four parts of this six-part series we provided an overview of the importance of a structured analysis of your win probability, and checklists for conducting critical analyses of the opportunity, your customer, and your competition. In this part we will provide a checklist for a critical analysis of yourself. In the remaining part we will provide guidelines for preparing your win strategies.
Win Strategy General Guidelines - The Competitor Analysis
The purpose of the Competitor Analysis is to assess the capabilities and potential for all competing factors to prevent your company's success. Companies usually consider only other potential offerors and ignore competing factors within their customer’s management and funding authority. Consequently the companies spend scarce B&P funds on opportunities that never materialize.
Win Strategy General Guidelines - The Customer Analysis
In the first two parts of this six-part series we provided an overview of the importance of a structured analysis of your win and provided a checklist for conducting a critical analysis of the opportunity. In this part we will provide a checklist for a critical analysis of your customer. In the remaining parts we will provide checklists for your competitors’ analysis and self analysis, and guidelines for preparing your win strategies.
Win Strategy General Guidelines - Competition Data Base Requirements and Approach and the Opportunity Analysis
The Proposal Manager's Four Uses of Competition Analysis
During the proposal creation process, competition analysis (that is, knowledge of who the competition is for this contract, and what the competition is likely to bid) has four distinct, but related, uses by the Proposal Manager.
Competitive Analysis Considerations
Preferably before the RFP ever comes out, you should be assessing the potential competition on a proposal. Because a proposal is a competition, you need to score higher to win. In order to boost yourself, or even lower them, you have to know who they are.
Developing Competitive Intelligence on Service Contracts
BACKGROUND
The incumbent has had the service contract for several years. They have a large force of employees on the job, but performance has declined, and the incumbent is inattentive to customer needs. It is re-bid time.
Categories
-
Editing (2)
-
Graphics (4)
-
Marketing (8)
- How To Take Advantage of Proposal Lessons Learned
- How to Increase your Win Ratio in One Easy Step
- Court wrestles with “commercial item” definition
- Market Intelligence as a Competitive Edge
- Relationships: The Core Concept in Building Government Business
- When Hunting for Contracts, Never use a Shotgun
- How Can a Small Business Win More Contracts?
- Marketing Positions Small Business to Win
-
Key Personnel (3)
-
Red Team (5)
-
Proposal Writing (19)
- A Current Look at the Proposal Market
- Volume of Proposal Activity in the Fall
- Should You Write The Executive Summary First or Last
- A Whole New Way to Think About Sales Proposals
- Fog Index and Pace
- Strategy-Theme-Discriminator Tree Development
- Write a Winning Transition Plan
- Proposal Strategy Tree
- Effect of the Stimulus on Government Contracting and Proposal Activity
- Keep Your Sentences Short: Why Shorter Is Better
- Eliminating Background Noise
- Avoiding Death by Bullet Point
- Leading Non-Professional Proposal Writers
- How to Write a Better Proposal Introduction
- Writing Persuasive Reasons Why Customers Should Select You
- When to Start Writing Before the Final Solicitation
- Resumes - Hints on Preparing Winning Resumes
- Management Plans: What Makes a Quality Management Plan
- Tell 'em, and tell 'em, and tell 'em again
-
Resume Preparation (2)
-
Proposal Coordination (3)
-
Writing Past Performance (3)
-
Orals Coaching (18)
- How to Select an Orals Coach
- Can’t We All Just Get Along?
- Ten Tips for Presenting to Senior Executives
- Bring Home the Bacon! Part Two:
- Bring Home the Bacon! Part One: Why Project Managers Should Improve Their Presentation Skills
- How “Beetle Bailey” Can Improve Your Presentation Skills
- Why Oral Presentations are Important: Part Two - The Murder Board
- Why Oral Presentations are Important: Part One
- How to Increase the Economic Impact of Your Presentations
- 7 Uncommon Power Point Techniques
- Business Developers: How to “Fix” Your Presentations
- Benefits of an Effective Orals Strategy
- Videotaped Oral Presentations
- Hey Coach! Help Me With Rehearsals!
- How to Select an Orals Coach
- Orals Coaching - "It's All in The Attitude!"
- Orals - Hey Coach! Help Me With My Body Language
- Orals - Knowing the Room Improves the Presentation
-
Proposal Protests (5)
-
Proposal Management (25)
- The Proposal Plan: The Proposal Manager Prepares this Document to Guide the Proposal Creation Activity
- Analyzing the Final Solicitation
- Getting Prepared to Win Large Proposals
- Difficulties in Determining Best Value
- The Proposal Manager's Tasks
- Maintaining Positive Contracting Officer Relationships...A List of Do and Don't Recommendations
- Unsolvable Problem: Your Proposal Team Argues over Proposal Quality
- Planning Your Solution vs. Planning Your Content
- The Proposal Plan: The Proposal Manager Prepares this Document to Guide the Proposal Creation Activity
- Five Popular Ways to Write A Losing Proposal
- Cost of Preparing Proposals
- The Challenge of Preparing Task Order Proposals
- Why Create Your Own Draft RFP?
- Asking Questions on Your Next RFP
- Five Easy Ways to Improve Your Proposals
- Proposal Departments: Whether to Use Permanent Staff or Consultants
- Volume Management: Getting the Best, Quickly, from Your Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
- The Proposal Plan: The Proposal Manager Prepares this Document to Guide the Proposal Creation Activity
- Tips on Winning Proposals
- Pre-Proposal Goals Help Build Winners
- Storyboards Why Bother?
- The Top 10 Ways to Lose a Proposal
- The Top 10 Ways to Ensure Proposal Success
- The First Five Days
- Decomposing a Solicitation can be Fun
-
Miscellaneous (12)
- 2011 Highlights and Board Meeting
- OCI Supporting Innovative AIDS Research Program
- When pre-bid Q&A raises more questions than answers
- Will the Appropriations Bill Ever be Approved?
- Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to hire 1,000 IT workers during fiscal 2011
- Defense Appropriations Act Prohibits Mandatory Arbitration
- House Passes Defense Bill That Would Reduce Use of Contractors
- PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM ON GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING - RESERVING WORK FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES
- OMB Memorandum 10-26 Immediate Review of Financial Systems IT Projects
- President Obama's Affect on Proposal Work
- Ten Practical Rules For Protecting Rights In Technical Data And Computer Software
- Elements of a Good Product Demonstration
-
Earned Value Management (1)
-
Competition Analysis (8)
- Win Strategy General Guidelines — Strategy Definition and Planning
- Win Strategy General Guidelines — The Self Analysis
- Win Strategy General Guidelines - The Competitor Analysis
- The Proposal Manager's Four Uses of Competition Analysis
- Win Strategy General Guidelines - The Customer Analysis
- Competitive Analysis Considerations
- Win Strategy General Guidelines - Competition Data Base Requirements and Approach and the Opportunity Analysis
- Developing Competitive Intelligence on Service Contracts
-
Risk Management (1)
-
Capture Management (19)
- The Business Capture Report Card - Phase Five
- The Business Capture Report Card - Phase Four
- The Business Capture Report Card - Phase Three
- The Business Capture Report Card - Phase Two
- The Business Capture Report Card – Phase One
- The Business Capture Report Card - Introduction
- How to Capture the Win
- Proposal Writing Myths and Realities
- Proposal Espionage, a Cautionary Tale
- Why Should the Customer Select You?
- The Art of not being eliminated
- What Makes a Must Win Opportunity Any Different?
- 47 Things to Know Before The RFP is Released
- Alternate Proposals Why You Should (Almost!) Never Submit One
- Program Manager: To Win, You MUST Offer a PM with Customer Recognition
- Ten Things You Probably Did Wrong on Your Last (Losing) Proposal
- Capture Plans: To Win the Proposal Manager Must Bring These Elements into the Proposal
- The Different Customer Roles in Vendor Selection
- What's the Most Important Thing to Know about Winning Proposals?
-
Proposal Evaluation (1)
-
Government Procurement (7)
-
Proposal Group Management (11)
- Proposal Departments: Whether to Use Permanent Staff or Consultants
- 7 Principals That Should Guide Your Proposal Process
- Proposal Departments: Whether to Use Permanent Staff or Consultants
- Do You Have a Proposal Process, or Just Think You Do?
- Who Should Write The Proposal
- How To Get A Proposal Software Purchase Approved
- Building a Proposal Development Capability
- 7 Principals That Should Guide Your Proposal Process
- Creating and Managing Boilerplate
- How Do Your Proposal Processes Compare with "Best Practices"?
- Developing a Proposal Library
-
Contract Management (9)
- "Incumbent-itis”: How Incumbents can Lose the Proposal Competition
- Defending Incumbent Contracts - The "Vulnerability Assessment"
- Why Your Company Should Consider the Blanket Purchase Agreement
- Pricing Adjustments
- Wired RFPs
- Inexperienced Negotiators
- Sole Source - The Voice of Experience
- Post Award Debriefs
- Do Contractors Have to Police the Government?
-
Business Development (8)
- The Proposal Market in 2012
- Predictions for the Proposal Market in FY 2012
- Business Development Goals Creating Winning Teams
- The Goal of Good Business Development
- The Role of the Pipeline in Managing Business Development
- 101 Things Your Business Development Process Should Address
- Managing the Transition from Business Development to Proposal
- Simple Guidelines Small Business can Use to Measure Business Development
-
Virtual Proposal Preparation (1)
-
Unsolicited Proposals (1)
-
Performance Based Service Contracts (PBSC) (3)
-
Grants (1)
-
Executive Summary (1)
-
First Time Proposals (2)
-
Training/Education (2)
- Expand All
- Collapse All
If you enjoyed these articles and would like to receive our monthly newsletter.
Key Concepts
- Government Proposal Writing
- Proposal Training
- Win Government Proposals
- Government Proposals
- Federal Proposals
- Federal Proposal Writing
- Writing Government Proposals
- Win Government Contracts
- Government Proposal Capture
- Government Proposal Management
- Government Proposal Manager
- Orals Coach
- Government Proposal Coordinator
- Government Proposal Technical Writer
- Government Proposal Volume Lead
- Proposal Volume Lead
- Resume/Past Performance Writer
| About OCI | Contact Us | In House Proposal Facility | OCI Newsletter | User Agreement | Public Workshops | Follow us on Twitter | Site Map | Training | Survey |