Proposal Coordination

Creating an efficient workspace for your proposal team is essential to their well-being and the quality of proposals they will produce. Here are some low-cost improvements you can make to your office now!

1. Be sure there is a refrigerator the proposal team can access. The refrigerator allows the people working long hours to bring in the food and drink of their choice, and keep them cool. This is a cheap way to keep your people happy. On a tight budget? Consider purchasing a used refrigerator on Craigslist or clear out your main fridge for some extra space.

In our never ending battle to win more business, we are always looking for ways to sharpen our technique and improve our strategy. Doing better in technique and strategy is critical now that we are faced with a presidential election, delayed appropriations, the federal sequestration, and a challenged economy.

During the 15 years I have been associated with OCI, customers have called on me to assist in “fixing” their proposal process many times. The setting is always similar. The company has been losing important proposal competitions.   Therefore they need help to iron out problems with their proposal process and start winning more contracts.   This typically requires analysis of past proposals, fact gathering from cognizant personnel, preparation of recommendations, submission of a fix plan in conference, training, and documentation.

A proposal has a lot of moving parts. The solution you are proposing may change. The proposal may have hundreds or thousands of sections being developed by the authors, and these files are constantly changing.

During the past 18 years, I have worked as a Proposal Manager / Technical Writer for many Fortune 500 companies and numerous medium and small businesses. My work has focused on helping Government contractors to prepare proposals ranging in size from $20,000 to $4 billion. These proposals have primarily been for contracts in the fields of telecommunications, information technology (IT), logistics, and base operations and maintenance (O&M) support contracts.