Services
Services
Upon serving as a Contracting Officer (CO) and Source Selection Authority (SSA) for many years leading proposal evaluations and making contract award determinations, these were the common weaknesses found among the unsuccessful and even successful offers:
Proposal used regurgitated languages off of Statement of Work (SOW) / Performance Work Statement (PWS), as offered methodology for meeting the requirement;
Proposal lacks specifics on how the offered approach(es) will be implemented, carried out, or benefit the program objectives;
Portion(s) of offered services is not considered as a part of the contract scope;
Proposal did not follow the submission instruction described in RFP Sections L & M; and
Proposal does not convey the offeror's relevant past experiences and/or capacity to support the magnitude of the contract scope.
Proposals must be prepared in accordance with the instructions provided via RFP Sections L & M - Instructions, conditions, and notices to offerors or respondents & Evaluation factors for award, respectively, because the award decisions shall be made based on the specified evaluation criteria only. Each and all of the technical elements in the evaluation factors shall be addressed and proposed approaches & resources surpassing the solicitation requirement beyond the contract scope can be costly but cannot be rewarded as strength in the evaluation. This is the guideline COs/SSAs have to enforce even if the additional solutions/services are evaluated as 'strength' by the technical evaluation panel members. Also, offerors have to know that often times, especially when involving complex service contracts, evaluation team members do not (cannot) have in-depth knowledge/experience in all aspects of the contract scope; e.g., medical staff may participate in evaluation of proposals for an Electronic Health Record (EHR) system purchase, with limited insight in IT component of the requirement. However, when arriving at a consensus evaluation ratings for such requirements, the medical staff's interpretation of the operational impact by the proposed methodologies on the system management, security, usability, etc., will play a significant weight on a final evaluation rating of the IT technical factor.
Federal best value contract award decisions are often made in support of the technical proposal packages offering solutions exceeding mandatory minimums (see FAR 15.306[d][4]) , with applied premium on the award amount. Nonetheless, reasonable and responsible business proposal with no applied assumptions is a key factor for all award determinations. It is critical to clarify any ambiguities in the scope & RFP terms during the solicitation phase via Q&A as appearance of low bid upon contract award is subject to a negative performance evaluation and contract termination which will lower the company's probability in obtaining the follow-on or other contract awards.
My familiarity with the process on how technical ratings and contract award decision are determined will supplement your team's efforts to assure the proposal is responsive and written jointly to the specified RFP terms and instructions, in reader-friendly manner suitable for various professionals. An unsuccessful, but creditable proposal package can still make a valuable impact for the company from a positive introduction of its capabilities to the evaluation panel members and CO responsible for processing the follow-on and other related contract requirements.
Contractor Representatives often ask this wrong question to Government Officials -
"These are the services/products we provide. What can we do for you?"
Instead, the discussion needs to evolve mainly around a contractor prepared list of the ongoing or new contract opportunities, to enable the following question -
"Could you tell me the government's acquisition strategy for the recompetition of the current contract number XXX?"
With extensive experience analyzing the federal procurement database, I help generate a list of specific opportunity leads that can be complementary for your future meetings with the government officials. These leads will be determined based on its magnitude, scope, competition/set-aside history, etc., pertinent to the company's expertise, so that appropriate target customers can be established for efficient marketing effort.
Further, existing contracts subject to the eSRS (Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System) reporting requirement can be surveyed for available subcontracting opportunities to large prime businesses that are in need of meeting the small business subcontracting goals under the contract award terms.