We are optimistic that the volume of solicitation releases / proposal activity in the fall will be higher than usual. Due to the latest ever passage of final appropriations in 2011, there was not enough time remaining to process all the procurements needing to be processed prior to end of the fiscal [...]
The requirement to give oral proposal presentations has been important for decades, but the nature of oral proposals fundamentally changed with simplification in contracting during the mid 1990s. Two important results of the changes in orals were as follows:
Recruiting and selling key personnel are critical factors in preparing winning proposals. Despite its importance, it is easy for even experienced proposal managers to let key personnel efforts get overshadowed by other issues.
Even if your team does stay focused on selecting the right people, effectively selling these key people throughout the proposal often remains a major challenge. As a result, while key personnel should always be one of the contributing factors to a win, it can cause an otherwise winning proposal to lose.
Especially after early 21st century reform in contracting, past performance has become the section that often decides who wins or loses the contract. The hundreds of proposals we have worked during the past three years have usually assigned 30 - 40% of the total evaluation score to past performance. Past performance can assume an even more important position in the proposal, however, because Source Selection committees are going to award contract only to vendors with strong past performance.
OCI is assisting Macha Hospital in Zambia in a search for funds to carry out a highly innovative AIDS research project. This project is a game-changing experiment designed to demonstrate a way to eliminate AIDS over time. This experiment is significant because present approaches to AIDS treatment do not have the capability [...]
During my career, I have evaluated, reviewed, edited, or written over 20,000 resumes, mostly for technical personnel. This experience was obtained in preparing staffing and personnel sections for Government proposals.
Although some people would think any involvement with resumes is a dubious distinction, this work always seemed like an exciting challenge to me. The "challenge" is how to invest your limited time and ingenuity in a way that will win maximum evaluation points on the personnel section of the bid.
Should you write the Executive Summary first and build your proposal to support it, or should you write it last, as a summary of all the material developed in writing the proposal? There are good reasons for taking either approach, but which is best for you will depend on your circumstances and goals.
Once or twice a year, we attempt to answer the magic question, how much proposal activity will we see during the next year? In other words, how much business will proposal shops and proposal professionals be having? According to our estimates, the volume of proposal business during the first six months of 2011 was maybe 10% slower than previous year. This was not primarily because of the cuts in DoD spending, but it was mostly because of the toxic political environment in Washington, DC.
Courtesy of Husch Blackwell
Contractors bidding on federal contracts must take the leap of faith that they have accounted for all of the various elements that will affect the cost of their performance. But there's no need to do so completely blind. Asking key questions of the procuring agency can help shed light on ambiguities in the contract documents.
Especially after reform in contracting, past performance has become the section that often decides who wins or loses the contract. The dozens of proposals we have worked during the past three years have usually assigned 30 - 40% of the total evaluation score to past performance. Past performance can assume an even more important position in the proposal, however, because no Source Selection committee is going to award contract to a vendor lacking strong past performance.