Welcome to Advantage Consulting

Management & Operating (M&O) for Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12), Pantex Plant Site (PX), & Savannah River Site (SRS)

If you want the free full summary of this target go to http://login.epipeline.com/limitedDisplay?ID=FOSRCUSA16908&FLAG=SUMMARY. . This target is only available for a short period of time.

If you need help designing and executing your capture program or proposals to win this procurement contact Sid Jaffe, at 703-642-5153.

Holistic Approach to Pricing Proposals
By Ray Houttekier, Associate, Advantage Consulting, Inc.

Our Advanced Pricing Workshop was revised last year to accommodate the government's continued reliance on a "best value" evaluation process. Pricing is just one piece of the puzzle we create during each proposal project. By considering a holistic approach, we reduce the risk that the pricing volume may appear to be out of sync with the other volumes. Even though the government RFP frequently provides the structure for pricing in an Excel workbook, there are still plenty of ways to customize your pricing to demonstrate your company's pricing strategy. The primary objective is to produce a strong pricing proposal which correlates with the technical solution, resulting in an award.

The updated workshop addresses a broad range of topics such as pricing strategy, assessing the competition's pricing, basis of estimates (BOEs), and practical lessons learned. Our pricing instructor will share his 20+ years of pricing experience and answer questions to help you improve your pricing process and is scheduled for August 25, 2010.

Bluebirds Are Expensive
By Bill Hamilton, Vice President, Advantage Consulting, Inc.

Before you decide to respond to that solicitation that appeared "out of the blue," think for a minute about the cost of that bid.

Usually these opportunities -- nicknamed "bluebirds" -- are expensive gambles. Staff can often become emotionally involved in what they perceive as the "sure thing" that they forget about the cost of a bid. The bid/no bid is a business decision and, before you make that decision, you should consider costs and other drains on your company resources before you say yes.

Your primary costs are staff time and effort to collect and evaluate information, develop winning themes and strategies, and publish a proposal. Those costs appear about the same as costs in developing a winning proposal. You probably said, "There is no additional cost, so why not do it?"

Unfortunately, there is additional cost. Most companies do not have staff sitting on the bench; proposal support must come from otherwise committed employees. This bluebird assignment will take time from the employee's total 24X7-time resource. Previously assigned tasks may not be done or done as well. There is a cost of doing one thing as opposed to doing another. You could be causing a reduction in the quality of deliverables on billable contracts or you could be causing a reduction in an employees' personal non-company time. Or, you could be causing time away from working on a true winning proposal - one that you have spent time capturing. All of these are expensive costs.

Once you evaluate time and costs required to develop a bid, consider time and requirements necessary to obtain information needed to develop that bid. In a bluebird case, you may not know the customer well or at all. You may not know the competition and their strengths. You will have to run to catch up. This causes increased stress on your employees and creates opportunities for mistakes.

Your final consideration should be the analysis of probability of a win. In a fully developed capture and bid process, your win probability is relatively high. In the case of a bluebird, the probability of win may be 5 or 10 % or even less. You are going to spend as much bidding a losing proposal as you would to bid a winning one, but in a bluebird opportunity the cost is going to be elevated by opportunity costs and those costs are going to be further amplified by a very low win probability.

We recommend hard analysis of an opportunity before you commit resources to a bid. Reducing losses raises win probability as well increasing wins. Want to talk about wins and losses, contact me at bhamilton@acibiz.com or by phone at 703-642-5153 and let's talk.

Proposal Tip: The Key Is Key Words
By J.P. Richard, Vice President, Advantage Consulting, Inc.

Make sure you know what the reviewers consider the key words in their RFP to be, and be certain you have used them properly. If all the key words show up in your headings and/or in action captions, you increase your chances of getting the attention your proposal deserves from the reviewers. Remember, most reviewers are "skimmers." A "skimmer" will grab each proposal and rapidly scan the text, the section titles, and the captions for key words. If they don't find those right away they lose interest fast and may decide on that basis to give your proposal only a cursory review if any at all. You want to get the harried reviewers' attention early.

To talk about how we can support your proposal efforts, contact J.P. Richard, jprichard@acibiz.com.

Microsoft Office Based Tools For Reduced Cost And Increased Margin
By Sid Jaffe, President, Advantage Consulting, Inc.

The cost of conducting business development, capturing information and writing winning proposals is a significant expense for any size Government Contractor. And, those costs are rising. Controlling costs and increasing win percentages and margins requires a strong staff who are using a predictable approach supported by effective tools. Advantage Consulting has developed a BD, Capture and Proposal process tool set as templates and checklists within Microsoft Office. The tools are supported by the processes that we have coached and trained for more than 1,500 companies and 16,000 individuals.

Because the "tools" are compatible with a standard office productivity system and are easy to incorporate with minimal effort, the associated processes delivered by our coaching or training have often become the foundation for overall BD in a company. The results that our clients have shared is more effective BD, more complete Capture efforts, better Proposals, more predictable growth, or "Nibbling" on existing contracts and all at reduced costs.

To discuss how your organization may benefit from our approach contact Sid Jaffe at sjaffe@acibiz.com.

These insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great portion of the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words, not to mention waving middle fingers.