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 year. Therefore, many of these procurements were pushed into the October to December first fiscal quarter 2012 timeframe

As a result of having FY 2011 business pushed into the fall, we estimate that the proposal services market will be 12 – 15% faster than usual during the fall quarter. This estimate is supported by the virtually unanimous expectation among seasoned proposal professionals and industry analysts that volume of solicitation releases will be up significantly in the fall. However, to keep things in perspective one must remember that proposal activity is traditionally slow in the fall quarter, and that there is often only 40 – 50% as much proposal activity in the fall months as there is during some of the fast months such as May and June.