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Questioning the questions? Ask the Proposal Doctor
Dear Proposal Doctor,
The battle over which questions to send to the government customer on a long and not-very-well-written RFP has begun. The desktop publishers want to ask about fonts. The graphics people want to ask about color and foldout pages. The solution architect wants to ask about specifications and performance metrics. The contracts people want to suggest new terms and conditions. The pricing people want to ask about….everything.
Just collecting, vetting, discussing, formatting, and submitting the questions could eat up our entire response time. What is a proposal manager to do? How can we streamline this process?
-Questioning the Questions
Dear Questioning,
You’ve touched on a subject near and dear to my heart. Yes, this could easily spiral out of control. Worse yet, you could give away important information through your questions and, worse even than that, you…
Can you afford to chase premium price? Maybe.
Analysis shows the risk is worth the reward
This article was originally published May 3, 2013 in WashingtonTechnology.com.
By Bob Lohfeld
When the government awards a contract to other than the lowest priced offeror, it pays a price premium to make that award. How much price premium the government will pay is left to the judgment of the selecting official. This amount varies by type of service or product being procured, details of each solicitation, and experience of the source selection official.
In 1999, the price premium in a GAO study averaged about 7%. In 2010, the price premium in another GAO study averaged about 5%. Today, in the middle of the sequestration battle, the price premium is probably less than that; however, it’s difficult to generalize because the price premium can be unique to individual procurements. Here’s what we learned from the…
Acquisition Reform – Review of Best Value Procurements (B-281983) GAO Study
Acquisition Reform – Review of Best Value Procurements (B-281983)
Enhanced Training Could Strengthen DOD’s Best Value Tradeoff Decisions (GAO-11-8)
GAO Study – Enhanced Training Could Strengthen DOD’s Best Value Tradeoff Decisions (GAO-11-8)
