Misconception #7 – “To develop my new proposal, I don’t really need to tailor my solution to the specific specification since the government won’t read my proposal that closely anyway.”
When I read this one, I was genuinely shocked and puzzled. I was wondering how any contractor could expect to be considered for, much less win, a contract if they don’t tailor their proposal to the specifications.
However, I wanted to dig into this myth a little deeper because if it made it to the top 8 misconceptions about government contracting, a lot of contractors believe it.
Offerors should always tailor their proposal to the evaluation criteria, proposal instructions, and specific requirements of the solicitation. Contracting Officers and evaluation team members DO read proposals closely for compliance and must evaluate them against the factors and statement of work/performance work statement.
On any acquisition (regardless of estimated cost or scope) with evaluation criteria, it is vital for the offerors to follow the exact guidance and respond to each factor to be considered. It is a difficult, long path to get from requirement definition to contract award and contractors can help by making the evaluators’ jobs easy.
Program managers, contracting officers, and contractors are all being driven to ensure each contract is cost-effective and resource-efficient. This is mainly due to Better Buying Power initiatives and federal defense budget cuts across the board. 2016 is predicted to be an especially lean year with real possibilities of furloughs and sequestration – again.
Large dollar source selections are currently estimated to take 24 months. (Based on my recent experience, this will probably be changed to 36 months soon.) Gone are the days of awarding a base plus four contract and resting for four years and not worrying about starting the new acquisition one year out.
Levels of review continue to grow so it is no longer just the evaluation team that needs to be convinced you can perform the contract. It’s the peer reviewers and HQ reviewers and, depending on the dollar value, even Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Acquisition) (SAF/AQ) reviewers.
As a result, each evaluation team member knows they will have to defend every decision they make at each level of review and the ultimate scrutiny of the source selection authority. So they have no choice but to diligently review each proposal with a fine-toothed comb to ensure they are properly evaluating it.
What can you do to ensure your proposal meets the requirements?
• Develop a checklist of solicitation requirements – this ensures you don’t miss any critical area and that your response is in the format requested
• Be fully responsive to ALL evaluation factors – including past performance. Do NOT assume you will get past performance “credit” because the government is familiar with your work.
• Do NOT just cut and paste from the RFP or use the same language from a previous proposal – you could miss important evaluation factors or misunderstand nuances of the requirement.
One final thought – regardless of what you believe, it’s a new dawn for federal contracting and poorly written solicitations, ineffective evaluations, and substandard proposals can no longer be tolerated.