The 3 biggest mistakes in the federal business development process

This ppt will summarize those problems and cover the federal business development process to provide a common understanding to work from. For more details visit- https://blog.ostglobalsolutions.com/federal-business-development-process-mistakes/

Transcript

1. THE 3 BIGGEST MISTAKES IN THE FEDERAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PROCESS BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
2. We have spent decades conducting business development and leading proposal efforts for our government contractor clients, and we have won over $22 billion in funded work for them. Over time, we have seen the same mistakes come up repeatedly in different companies across multiple industries. Our consultants have brainstormed on the top three problems that government contracting companies keep making that are seriously impacting their performance and growth. Introduction
3. It takes a tremendous amount of work and discipline to research and qualify opportunities. You must make incremental progress engaging with the customer and gather intelligence. Then you’ll develop win themes/win strategies, conduct competitive analysis, and form a winning team. Finally, you’ll brainstorm on the solution. Many times, companies don’t submit enough proposals because they don’t have anything interesting to bid on. Too few opportunities in the pipeline to meet growth goals
4. At the very least, business managers need to conduct a bi-monthly pipeline review and an interim check on each individual opportunity. No one likes to do pipeline/opportunity reviews, so leadership and buy-in has to come from the top. As soon as the BD lead steps away or delegates it, the whole process falls apart. No review process to check each opportunity’s capture progress to then decide if the pursuit should still be funded
5. Capture is largely pre-proposal preparation, but capture managers usually don’t generate proposal artifacts. Capture managers should perform a variety of tasks that contribute to successful proposal development. Many of these tasks are either not done or left to the proposal team to do once the final RFP has been released. Usually, there isn’t enough time to play catch during a live proposal. So the proposal team resorts to copy-and-paste because they have nothing to write about. We will address each of these major problems in subsequent blog posts, but we will talk about the general process that companies should be using to grow in the government contracting industry. Submitting general proposals that don’t answer the government’s requirements
6. Before your firm can aspire to bid on government contracts as a prime contractor, you must gather the resources, develop the capacity, and build the infrastructure to deliver a winning proposal and execute successfully on contract after award. Completing this step might mean that not all of those objectives have been achieved. But you must at least identify the required elements and have a detailed plan for acquiring or developing them. Other things in this step include financial resources, certification and licenses (such as ISO and CMMI), facilities, clearances, equipment, key performers, and training. Build Capacity to Do Business with the Government
7. As part of Step 2, you need to know which markets you are going to enter, what are the market trends, who are the competitors, who are the customers, and which opportunities could advance your company’s growth. Don’t become preoccupied with the features and benefits of your company’s own offerings. Certainly, your unique offerings will be the core of any proposal. But insightful research requires understanding your competitors and their products. Just as crucial is the same information about your prospective customers—the Government agencies as well as their programs, teams, and plans. Understanding business needs and pain points will help you hone both your technical solutions and your management approaches for higher quality and effectiveness. Perform Market Research 12
8. Marketing takes place after you know which customers you’re going after and who your competition is. Marketing in this step entails targeting specific people in the government for specific contracts. You should know exactly how you can help before you go to the meeting. The same is true for partners. You need to develop a value proposition for a specific opportunity that will resonate with specific people. Additionally, effective marketing in today’s online marketplace includes making your website easy to find for Government customers and also potential teaming partners. Market to the Feds and Partners
9. Continuously populating and managing your opportunities pipeline is key to a successful BD process. We think of it as a funnel: At the top, there’s the universe of all potential bids that might fit your company and its offerings. Other filters could be socioeconomic set-aside, contract size, available resources, technology preferences, evaluation criteria (Trade-off vs. LPTA), Service Contract Act requirements, clearance, etc. Your financial capability must be enough to complete the proposals and also to field your team of performers upon award. Build and Manage an Opportunities Pipeline
10. This step shouldn’t be guesswork—too much is at stake. But often such gate reviews end up being far from precise. To support each of these decisions, we’ve developed a Bid/No-Bid Framework. You can use this interactive worksheet to assign metrics to win factors and arrive at a numeric determination about whether to submit a particular bid. Qualify Each Individual Opportunity
11. Capture is pre-proposal preparation, and it is often the longest step in the business development lifecycle. It can involve years of deliberate, targeted activities with proper lead time and spacing. The goal is to engineer a win ahead of time. Conduct Capture
12. As shown in the diagram below, our approach to proposal development is just as formal and disciplined as our overall BD strategic process. However, as we’ve covered here, the capture management and BD pipeline should feed into the tasks of developing technical solutions and management approaches well in advance of RFP issuance. Proposal Preparation
13. Your competent, compliant, and reliable contract performance will pave the way to future successes and expanded business opportunities. Through your ongoing BD process, you will find out more information about other pursuits, and in the eyes of your customers you will join the inner circle of favored companies. We hope our crash course has been a helpful introduction to federal business development. In the next 3 blog posts, we’ll cover where things usually break down and how to fix them. If you want the best professional training available in how to grow your government contract business, check out our Bid & Proposal (B&P) Academy to empower your team to win and grow your company. Develop Business During Project Execution
14. OST Global Solutions, Inc. Rockville, MD (301) 384-3350 https://ostglobalsolutions.com/ service@ostglobalsolutions.com Reference Article - https://blog.ostglobalsolutions.com/federal-business- development-process-mistakes/ CONTACT US