Improve Your Company's Contracting Growth

Capture Management and Proposal Training: Every company should have career development plans for its employees and offer professional development training for its management, key employees and especially for those people involved in business development, capture management, and proposal development. They should also provide training in proposal writing for technical and managerial professionals to help them write more compelling proposals.

Business Acquisition Process: It is principle that having a well-structured business acquisition process increases business acquisition effectiveness and reduces cost. Documenting these processes is the first step in raising the maturity of the business acquisition process. All companies of any reasonable size should have defined, repeatable businesses acquisition processes covering the business development, capture, pre-proposal preparation, proposal development, and post-proposal submission phases of the business acquisition life cycle. These processes should be fully supported by management and used for all new business acquisition.


Capture Management: Companies should evaluate every new business pursuit monthly and make an affirmative decision to continue, delay or suspend the pursuit. If no reviews are conducted, then every new business opportunity remains in play, even when it is clear that the company can’t win. Proper capture management reduces the effort spent on opportunities that are likely to be losers and focuses effort on opportunities with a better chance of winning. Measuring capture progress and making associated management decisions also are essential parts of the business acquisition process and necessary for increasing your win rate.


Management Decisions: The purpose of gate reviews is to ensure that management makes timely decisions about continuing to invest in a new business opportunity and to provide an opportunity for executive management to coach the capture team on how to raise its win probability. These gate reviews are fundamental to effective and efficient acquisition of new business.


Annotated Outlines: Annotated outlines or storyboards probably are not used. If they are used, they are not reviewed and approved by management. No wonder there is so much rewriting involved in completing typical proposals.


Proposal Quality: Professionally developed proposals do not have these problems. They are always compliant, compelling and responsive. Major improvements in proposal quality are still need by many companies.


Performance: Execute contracts to standards in accordance with SOW/Solicitation. Consider compliance, administrative and management requirements

Monday Morning Contracting Tips

Inside the Critical Bid/No Bid Decision

What’s the key to determining whether or not to bid on a federal contract, “Knowledge” The best informed company “Wins”

15 Important factor in making a bid decision

1.      Are you completely informed about the opportunity?  

2.      How well do know the customer?

3.      How well do you understand the customer’s requirements?

4.      What kind of credibility or experience you’ve had with that customer?

5.      What is the competition and its capabilities?

6.      Do you understand the work?

7.      Do you understand what the customer’s mission?  

8.      Do you have the current talent on staff to understand the technology?

9.      Is this a small proposal effort that you can accomplish with our internal team?

10.  Do we have the team in place to provide a compliant, compelling proposal?

11.  Does the opportunity fit your company strategically?

12.  Will pursuing this contract help you achieve our financial objectives as a company?

13.  What are your parameters around the bid process?

14.  Do you need to partner with somebody, team with somebody?

15.  What are the go-no go guidelines you’re setting and stick to them?

What are the government challenges as they enter into the 4th Quarter Spending? Meeting the Set-Aside Goals

It will be very important to position your company for Set-Aside Contracts during the 4^th Quarter of the federal government fiscal year. For the sixth year in a row, the government has missed its goal to award 23% of all federal contract dollars to small businesses. On Tuesday, July 3, the Small Business Administration reported that federal agencies gave out 21.7% to small companies. That sounds close, but means that small businesses did not receive $3.8 billion set aside for them. The contracts are awarded by all federal departments for a wide array of projects and jobs. They funnel hundreds of billions of dollars every year to the private sector.

The awarding goal, which was raised slightly to 23% in 1997, was part of the same 1953 law that established the SBA. It was created to support small companies and avoid having large ones awarded all the federal contracts. But the government has missed the target consistently. Small businesses have missed out on at least $25.7 billion in contracts since 2006, the last year the government reached its goal.The SBA did not provide comment about the failure of agencies to meet the goal. It pointed to a blog post that discussed its efforts to minimize fraud and increase participation of small companies.

The chairman of the House Small Business Committee, Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), has pushed legislation that aims to increase transparency in contracting and punish the agencies that fail to meet the goal. The legislation also provides for educating contracting officers who often mislabel contracts worth millions as "small business" contracts, even though they're directed to subsidiaries of major corporations. A provision in the legislation also raises the goal from 23% to 25%, which sounds unrealistic given the track record. But Graves insists even the higher target is achievable.

"Solutions to both of these problems can be accomplished at the same time. The goal hasn't been met, because there hasn't been an incentive for agency staff to do so," Graves said. The government has reached its 23% target only three times in the past dozen years. One group long critical of federal contracting procedures said the situation is worse than it appears.

The American Small Business League, which analyzes thousands of contracts every year, points to mistakes by federal contract officers and said they inflate the numbers.

SAM takes over CCR and ORCA at end of May – check your records now!

On May 29, 2012, Central Contractor Registration (CCR) and Online Representations and Certifications (ORCA) are scheduled to undergo a revolutionary change. Both of these federal vendor registration services will be replaced by a new system called SAM – System for Award Management. SAM is being managed by the General Services Administration – GSA.

Over a period of the next several years, SAM will consolidate nine government databases.

What this means to vendors:

Your existing CCR and ORCA registrations are scheduled to be automatically transferred to SAM on May 29th.

While GSA hopes for a smooth transition to the new SAM system, there likely will be some hiccups. During the transition, difficulties can be expected with new registrations and re-registrations. Since CCR contains over 600,000 active registrants, annual re-registrations alone average about 2,000 per business day. Even a small glitch could backlog the help desk, and with 2,000 daily updates, a backlog of problems has the potential to grow very quickly.

What you should do:

Check the expiration date of your current CCR and ORCA registrations. If either of your registrations are scheduled to expire in the next few months (May, June, July), we advise you to renew your registrations now.

Taking care of your registration renewal now will allow you to avoid getting caught-up in the rush of renewals and new registrations that are sure to occur in late May and in the months of June and July.

To check your CCR expiration date, just go to https://www.bpn.gov/ccr, click on “CCR Search” near the top of the screen, and enter your DUNS number or CAGE code to review your registration. You can check your ORCA registration by going to https://orca.bpn.gov/ and entering your DUNS number. If you are due to renew either of these registration systems any time between now and the end of the year, we urge you log in and update your CCR and ORCA registration before the end of this month (May 2012). Your updated registrations will be good for one year.

Taking action now will assure that you will not have a critical need to update your records until well after any system transition problems are solved.

A fact sheet on the new SAM system can be downloaded here: SAM Flyer 2012

JE Group launches’ its ICA

I will be departing Monday May 14, 2012 for The UAE (Dubai). JE Group will be officially launching our International Consortium Alliance (ICA), an initiative supported by a Public Private Partnership with the TAOE Foundation.

The ICA is designed for JE Group (SDVOSB) to integrate and deploy a defined business-to-business best practices model with international companies to pursue Federal Government Contracts. JE Group will be responsible for Pre and Post award Business Development, Contract Administration, Contract Compliance and Contract Management services for its strategic alliance partners. Our process methodology is designed to proactively position international businesses to bring solutions via services and products. We seek to identify means to deploy community sustainability using government contracting and corporate alliances as a primary resource to facilitate and expedite growth in various regions.

WHY DO COMPANIES EXPAND INTERNATIONALLY?

6 Quick Fixes that will Improve Your Company’s Win Rate

1. Capture and Proposal Training: Only 52 percent of the companies surveyed provide career development and professional training for their business development, capture management, and proposal development staffs.

Every company should have career development plans for its employees and offer professional development training for its management, key employees and especially for those people involved in business development, capture management, and proposal development. They should also provide training in proposal writing for technical and managerial professionals to help them write more compelling proposals.

Companies can develop these training programs internally or contract the training to companies that provide such specialized training. However you do it, some training is better than no training. By offering this kind of training, you can immediately leapfrog half the companies in your market.

2. Business Acquisition Process: 54 percent of the companies surveyed have not documented their business acquisition processes.

It is an indisputable principle that having a well-structured business acquisition process increases business acquisition effectiveness and reduces cost, yet half the companies surveyed compete using undocumented processes. Documenting these processes is the first step in raising the maturity of the business acquisition process. All companies of any reasonable size should have defined, repeatable businesses acquisition processes covering the business development, capture, pre-proposal preparation, proposal development, and post-proposal submission phases of the business acquisition life cycle. These processes should be fully supported by management and used for all new business acquisition.

3. Capture Management: Only 33 percent of companies review their capture progress and use these reviews to make management decisions about pursuing or continuing to pursue new business opportunities.

Companies should evaluate every new business pursuit monthly and make an affirmative decision to continue, delay or suspend the pursuit. If no reviews are conducted, then every new business opportunity remains in play, even when it is clear that the company can’t win. Proper capture management reduces the effort spent on opportunities that are likely to be losers and focuses effort on opportunities with a better chance of winning. Measuring capture progress and making associated management decisions also are essential parts of the business acquisition process and necessary for increasing your win rate.

4. Management Decisions: Only 45 percent of companies surveyed use gate reviews as part of their business acquisition process.

The purpose of gate reviews is to ensure that management makes timely decisions about continuing to invest in a new business opportunity and to provide an opportunity for executive management to coach the capture team on how to raise its win probability. These gate reviews are fundamental to effective and efficient acquisition of new business.

5. Annotated Outlines: 70 percent of proposal writers begin writing their assigned sections before

management has approved what they are going to write.

Annotated outlines or storyboards probably are not used. If they are used, they are not reviewed and approved by management. No wonder there is so much rewriting involved in completing typical proposals.

6. Proposal Quality: 37 percent of companies surveyed said their proposals suffer from errors that could cause them to lose bids.

Professionally developed proposals do not have these problems. They are always compliant, compelling and responsive. Major improvements in proposal quality are still need by many companies.

Panel: Small Businesses to Feel Crunch, Due to the Potential Decline in Government Spending

A panel of lawmakers has recommended increasing the 23 percent contracting goal because of the foreseen decline in government spending.

“There is a fear that the decrease will be disproportionately borne by small businesses,”

The panel wrote that less spending will affect the health of the defense industrial base and pose challenge to the economy as a whole.

Each year, the government, as whole, aims to award 23 percent of its spending from prime contracts to small businesses. The government continuously comes up short of the goal.

As the panel recommends the increase, it’s already being considered.

Where's GBC???

Many have asked what’s going on with my Monday Morning Contracting Tips. Well I’ve been in Afghanistan for a few weeks establishing partnership relationships to conduct business international. Through my travels I was able to connect with several Afghan companies who has an interest to do business with the federal government. Through a Strategic Partnership Alliance relationship with my JE Group company, these companies are now in a position to do business with the federal government as a Prime as well as a Sub-Contractor. Teaming and Joint Venture is recognize by the Federal Acquisition Regulation.          

Does the FAR recognize Teaming?  

The Government will recognize the integrity and validity of contractor team

arrangements; provided, the arrangements are identified and company relationships are fully disclosed in an offer or, for arrangements entered into after submission of an offer, before the arrangement becomes effective. (FAR 9.603)

What Types of Contractor Teams Does the FAR Recognize?

FAR 9.601 Reads:

Contractor team arrangement,” as used in this subpart, means an arrangement in which—

• Two or more companies form a partnership or joint venture to act as a potential prime contractor

• A potential prime contractor agrees with one or more other companies to have them act as its subcontractors under a specified Government contract or acquisition program.

Raise your Win Rate by 20 Percent

All executives want to increase their win rate.

First, let me make sure everyone understands that we are talking about the investment you make to improve your company’s overall win rate. This is the average win rate on all proposals your company submits, not your win rate on a specific proposal.

7-Factor Model

To predict increases in overall company win rates, we use a 7-Factor Company Win Rate Model.

While the model predicts overall company win rates, more importantly, it also predicts how a company’s win rate is affected by changing investments in these 7 factors—and that’s what we’re after. If we can predict how the win rate is affected by changes in the 7-Factor score, then we can make investments with confidence, knowing that we can predict the resulting win-rate increase.

  

10 Tips for Better Contracting: Relationship Advice for Contract Managers

It all starts with better communication.

Companies wait in suspense for months to hear who wins a contract that’s vital to their portfolios. They’ve invested a lot of money and time into getting each piece of the bid correct. In the end, for one company, it’s good news. The press releases go out and work gets started.

But the work, in fact, can begin too soon, former program managers and experts say. Any miscommunication between the contractor and the program manager from the start of a contract can cause problems to brew.

The world of procurement hinges on how the two interact. It’s so important because too often, the two sides don’t know what each other wants or expects. They may not even know what success really is, particularly on cutting-edge projects.

  

Your 10 Tips for better Contracting .

1. Learn about the program manager’s expectations and goals. Contractor and customer need to figure out milestones that point out progress.

2. Establish goals for the program that deal with cost, schedule, and performance with top management based on the contract’s requirements.

3. Get agreements in writing to be clear on issues.

4. Build a solid team in order to meet all parts of a contract. More specifically, have a strong financial manager and strong contract specialist..

5. Arrange a schedule for meeting regularly, whether in person or otherwise, whichever fits the circumstance.

6. Meet the points of contact in the program manager’s office. Contractors need to develop more than arm’s length relationships. It’s also important to know the chain of command in the program office.

7. Realize that bad news doesn’t get any better with age. Delaying bad news doesn’t help relationships. A program manager—or anyone, for that matter—doesn’t want to be blindsided with problems.

“Small problems, if you wait too long, become big problems,”

8. Grow tough skin. Contractors need to learn patience, and when people get upset, they should take the high road. In other words, act like an adult in tense situations and don’t retaliate for what is said.

9. Don’t take comments personally.

“Zone out for a few minutes and let them vent,” Once they’re done, “then begin to engage to accomplish things.”

10. Finally, learn from the mistake that were made. Deconstruct the steps that led to the collapse in the contract after it’s happened.

Subcontracting Your Starting Point into the Government Market

When considering how to enter the government marketplace, most business people first think about doing business directly with federal, state or local government agencies.

Contracting directly with a government entity involves many steps, and likely involves the requirement that you have years of established experience. In fact, there are many major considerations for doing government business as a prime contractor, including:

• Thorough knowledge of all applicable procurement regulations and laws.
• Registration in numerous vendor databases and keeping them up-to-date.
• Comprehensive market research to identify upcoming work.
• Skills necessary to analyze government solicitations, and then prepare detailed and responsive offers.
• Ability to secure bid, performance and payment bonds, if required.
• Ability to finance what may be a multi-million dollar job for at least 60-90 days until the first payment arrives.
• Established relationships with agency, including buyers and end-users.
• Track record of relevant experience.

If your business lacks the wherewithal to support all this, you may want to consider an alternative.

  

Five Stages of Proposal Writing

Business Development Phase

1. Opportunity Identification and Assessment

·         Identify opportunity

·         Meet with customer

·         Quality opportunity

·         Start capture plan

·         Prepare opportunity assessment package and conduct review

2. Pursuit

·         Organize capture team

·         Understand customer requirements and objectives

·         Development preliminary solution

·         Position solution with customer

·         Assess competition

·         Develop win strategy

·         Build/execute teaming strategy

·         Establish price to win

·         Assess risk

·         Conduct pursuit progress and preliminary bid decision gate reviews

Capture Phase

3. Pre-Proposal Preparation

·         Assign proposal resources

·         Development strawman RFP

·         Review solution against RFP

·         Review/approve storyboards

·         Identify and develop early-stage proposal products

·         Draft oral presentation

·         Finalize proposal development plan

·         Plan kickoff meeting

·         Conduct pre-proposal gate review

4. Proposal Development

·         Confirm bid decision

·         Finalize and validate proposal outline, design and resources

·         Conduct kickoff meeting

·         Finalize solution

·         Finalize storyboards and conduct Blue Team review

·         Begin writing proposal

·         Review/approve price proposal approach

·         Conduct Pink/Red Team reviews and edit

·         Conduct Gold Team review

·         Produce and quality check proposal

·         Conduct proposal submission gate review

5. Post-Submittal

·         Conduct closure strategy

·         Clean up proposal files and archive

·         Receive award notice

·         Attend debrief

·         Assist with protests

·         Conduct lessons-learned review

·         Conduct continual improvement gate review

·         Hold win party!

·         Transition to operations

Government Contracting First Quarter Review and Second Quarter Projection

The first quarter of fiscal 2012 got off to an all-too-familiar start, with federal agencies operating under a series of short-term continuing resolutions, instead of year-long budgets. Still, that didn’t stop agencies from awarding contracts worth more than $45 billion.

With budgets now in place, that pace likely will speed up. 3,500 solicitations worth up to $325 billion have been identified planned for release early this year.

First, let’s take a look at some of the more notable contract awards from the first quarter: