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B&P Support: Build, Buy, or Hybrid?

Federal contracting, with an annual expenditure averaging approximately $530 billion, offers significant advantages and unique opportunities to businesses of all sizes. Securing federal contracts enables firms to access recession-resistant revenue streams, ensure steady and reliable work, and explore new markets with substantial growth potential and long-term success prospects.

However, navigating the complexities of federal contracting, particularly concerning the Bid and Proposal (B&P) process, comes at a cost.

Successfully competing in this arena requires understanding and managing the expenses of developing compliant and compelling federal proposals. Each bid involves entering a dynamic bidding cycle to establish, sustain, and expand federal operations. To thrive in this competitive environment, federal contractors must thoroughly plan for the costs and outputs associated with proposals to maximize return on investment (ROI).

One central question of cost for your business may be: should your federal proposal response be outsourced or managed in-house?

There are numerous approaches to efficiently overseeing your B&P process, boosting your bid success rates, and optimizing your ROI. One of the most impactful strategies revolves around carefully distributing resources for each proposal and systematically leveraging third-party support.

To effectively allocate resources, federal contractors must candidly assess their current B&P team, capacity, skills, and expertise in relation to a proposal’s influencing and variable conditions.

To aid in this assessment, The Pulse has compiled essential insights and strategies that empower informed decisions, positioning your firm for success in the competitive bidding process.

Scaling Strategies

Designing a “right-fit” Bid and Proposal (B&P) team is essential for effectively developing, responding to, and submitting federal proposals. The roles, responsibilities, and size of an internal B&P infrastructure vary based on different factors, including, but not limited to, financial resources, workload volume, business objectives, and knowledge of the contracting market.

Your B&P team must function like a finely tuned machine by swiftly adapting to change and working seamlessly together. This requires abandoning outdated standards and instead adopting a “fit-for-purpose” infrastructure strategy. “Fit-for-purpose” emphasizes practicality and effectiveness over adherence to traditional standards, ensuring that the approach taken is optimized for the specific challenges and opportunities faced by the organization. This aligns a company’s internal infrastructure with the importance of the product or service it supports.

Designing this infrastructure may involve using tools for project management and collaboration, data management and accessibility, performance monitoring and reporting, and automation software.

At the core of its framework, a “fit-for-purpose” strategy sets an organization up for success when it needs to be reliable, available, flexible, adaptable, and most importantly – scalable.

By methodically designing your B&P infrastructure, you ensure it meets current requirements while enabling seamless adaptation to future challenges and growth. This includes expanding through horizontal scaling (increasing internal resources) or vertical scaling (augmenting resources and leveraging external talent).

Outsourcing Insights

Identifying how and when to leverage external expertise is essential for success, but navigating the landscape of outsourced support services can be tricky. The decision to vertically scale and outsource talent to supplement your internal B&P team and resources should align with your organization’s specific needs, budget considerations, and the proposal in question.

Outsourcing your proposal needs can provide resource flexibility, perspective, expertise, and workload balance. There are two types of consultants: those who work independently and those who work through a “shop.” Proposal shops usually have both staffers who work exclusively through them and staffers who work non exclusively only on some projects.

Keep in mind that rates for proposal consultants are usually fairly high, in the range of $150 to $300 per hour, depending on the consultant’s specialty. When choosing the consultant that’s right for you, make sure you’re familiar with how they work, including the software and tools they’ll use, the tasks they’re prepared to perform, their compliance check methods, and how they price.

If you choose to horizontally outsource instead and opt to hire in-house talent, your internal B&P team should align with your organization’s specific needs, forecast, and long-term growth plans. In-house proposal talent can provide your team with consistent and efficient work when executed with strategic integration.

Consultant Collaboration

Let’s say your team has made the decision to outsource to a consultant. Now what? When moving forward with a consultant joining in on your B&P process, it’s essential to establish clear expectations for collaboration and foster productive partnerships. Clear communication of expectations at every step along the way will drive superior proposal outcomes.

Here are the key steps to collaborating efficiently and effectively with consultants.

  1. Define Scope of Work. This includes tasks, responsibilities, and deliverables for the consultant(s).
  2. Set Clear Objectives. These can encompass broader project goals or more specific points like deadlines and metrics.
  3. Roles and Responsibilities. Define the distinct roles of the consultants and the internal team. Schedule regular updates and designate communication channels for updates and collaboration.
  4. Quality Standards. Ensure the consultant understands all compliance requirements. Establish a process for reviews and feedback.
  5. Budget and Payment Terms. Understand the consultant’s costs and payment terms, including invoicing procedures and payment schedules.
  6. Confidentiality and Compliance. Ensure confidentiality agreements are in place to protect sensitive information and other compliance adherence requirements.
  7. Feedback and Continuous Improvement. Maintain a system for regular feedback with the consultant and incorporate lessons learned.
  8. Contingency Planning. Discuss potential risks and challenges and agree on backup plans.
  9. Provide Background Information. Share background information about your company and its past performances.
  10. Communicate Expectations and Standards. Outline specific expectations for writing and formatting proposals, and ensure these aspects are reviewed during feedback sessions.
  11. Facilitate Access to Resources. Consultants will need access to necessary platforms, documents, data, and personnel, to complete their tasks.

It can be challenging to develop and manage the federal B&P process, because of the necessary time, expertise, skills, resources, and overall complexity. With these guidelines from The Pulse in mind, you and your team can know when and how to allocate this work to outside collaborators. These best practices can establish proposal processes that are not only compliant, but also succeed in attaining and growing federal client bases.