What Does it Take to Win Contracts in Today's World?

Only exceptionally well written and persuasive proposals will win.

Competing for government contracts in today's environment is quite different from previous decades. The quality and presentation style of winning proposals is much higher now than just a few years ago. Government rules and regulations for selecting a winner are much more stringent. When combined with the expected reduction in government spending over the next several years, competition to survive is going to be keen.

How well will your company compete in this environment of stiffer competition for fewer and smaller contracts?  A very misguided survival technique being used by some companies is to "shotgun" the marketplace. This approach is bringing new competition into every niche of defense business. This increase in the number of competitors ultimately affects the manpower and resources available to review and evaluate your proposals. Therefore, each proposal will be looked at with fewer eyes and granted less review time. This means each proposal becomes more important to your company's win/loss ratio. Therefore, your future depends on how well you organize, persuade and sell through written proposals.

The low bid is NOT an automatic winner!

The government has always challenged industry to produce the biggest bang for the tax payers buck. There was even a time when they accepted on faith what contractors told them about their capabilities. Ill wind investigations and other scandals have changed that attitude. The pendulum has swung to the ultra conservative side, and contractors must now prove beyond any doubt that they can and will do what they propose.

To win a contract today, you must be perceived as having the best price, the best technical solution, and present the lowest risk to the government. The ONLY way to do that is through an exceptionally well designed and superbly written proposal; one that is properly organized for ease of review, totally responsive to the requirements, and persuades the reviewer through understandable, quantified facts and figures.

You Cannot Compensate for a Non-Persuasive Proposal!

The government review team begins its process with a blank score card. They are instructed to score your proposal based on what you have written in the proposal. You may have a superb reputation in your field, impeccable production skill and capacity, progressive management procedures, and outstanding quality assurance programs. But,, these mean nothing unless you persuasively describe these company attributes in your proposal. You must show the government how these attributes combine to afford the highest quality product, timely deliveries, and lowest COMPETITIVE risk. This is where we can help.

We offer three levels of professional help to save you time and money while producing a winning proposal.

First: Would you like to spend less money and submit a better proposal? Professional Proposal Management can help you do just that with our Front-End Planning tool called Kick-start Kit^©. Most proposal cost over-runs, schedule problems, and technical deficiencies occur because the initial planning is inadequate and takes too long. Proposals that lose on technical merits do so frequently because they fail to be responsive and fully compliant. Technical authors always need more time to write, and better guidance on content and presentation. The PPM Process provides the precise direction and extra time needed for creative writing. With our Kick-start Kit^©, your technical team can concentrate on developing the details of the technical sections and not waste time on proposal structure and organization.

Second: PPM Hands-on Support can save you time and money. We have been in the proposal development business for almost ten years and we know how to organize and manage proposals to minimize costs and maximize quality. PPM has an overall win rate of approximately 90%, and 100% of our clients have reached the BAFO stage. Recently, three PPM clients were awarded contracts even though they were not the low bidder. They won based on the superiority of the technical and management volumes.

Third: An independent review of your proposal could make the difference between winning or losing. PPM has over ten years experience in orchestrating Pink/Red Team Reviews and improving the "winability" of proposals. With our knowledge of the source selection process and independent structured evaluation process we can improve your chances of winning your next bid. Our independent review procedures were developed to emulate the Government source selection process. The review process is concluded with a complete debriefing to your proposal staff which provides them with the specific guidance and direction on what to do to improve the proposal and increase your probability of winning the contract.

 
 
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