Proposal Land

Many RFPs require narratives on the bidder’s understanding of risk and approach to risk management.  Often, what bidders provide wouldn’t be out of place in a textbook: plain-vanilla risk management processes that lay out standard identification, assessment, and mitigation steps.  Boring!  Worse, they show no sign of being tailored for this scope of work: Indeed, they show no sign of ever having done this scope of work. 

Now, granted, clients can do better than to ask about “approach.”  But even if they do give you this fuzzy question, it’s not that hard to do a better response.  Start by thinking about things from the client’s point of view. 

Work Environment

What risks does the work environment pose:

• Regulatory compliance:
  • Environmental protection concerns?
  • Worker or public safety?
• Security:
  • Personal information privacy?
  • Information security?
• Performance:
  • Are there inherent problems with weather or restricted site access (seasonally or otherwise)?
  • Will the contractor have to work closely with other providers of products or services?

Explain how you’ll address the things that matter most to this client:

• Everyone cares about regulatory compliance, but some clients are super sensitive to breaches that smack of insufficient due diligence.
• Everyone expects security, but some organizations live and breathe it.
• Everyone wants performance, but some work is mission-critical.

Thinking about risk from the client’s point of view allows you to submit a better risk-management response, in whatever form it takes, and also to show risk awareness throughout your entire proposal.  The company marketers don’t always like it – they often see it as negative – but nothing says “Been there, done that, and done good!” more clearly than a good risk answer.

 

Many RFPs require narratives on the bidder’s understanding of risk and approach to risk management.  Often, what bidders provide wouldn’t be out of place in a textbook: plain-vanilla risk management processes that lay out standard identification, assessment, and mitigation steps.  Boring!  Worse, they show no sign of being tailored for this scope of work: Indeed, they show no sign of ever having done this scope of work. 

Now, granted, clients can do better than to ask about “approach.”  But even if they do give you this fuzzy question, it’s not that hard to do a better response.  Start by thinking about things from the client’s point of view. 

Size

Size may not be everything, but it can be a big thing.  So how big is this opportunity?  No, not in the sense of your anticipated revenues!

How big is it compared to the client’s entire operation? Quite reasonably, they’ll fuss more about relatively big honking activities than teeny-tiny ones.  Adjust your approach/response accordingly; for example:

• Add dedicated staff where it makes sense to maintain control of outcomes.
• Implement better performance monitoring systems and techniques so you get early warning of any problems.
• Give clients direct access to performance-monitoring technology.
• Communicate more frequently with the client about how things are going.

How big is it compared to the typical contractor organization?  Is the client likely concerned about potentially bankrupting a contractor, forcing them into default, or overwhelming their capacity to do good work, just because the contract is relatively large?  Explain why that won’t happen to you:

• Show that you’ve successfully handled similarly scaled contracts before.
• Explain how your proposed organization for the work, and your corporate organization, can accommodate the effort.
• Highlight your financial depth.
• Offer parental guarantees, if applicable.

Size and Scope

Is the opportunity so big and/or so complex (think pretty much any design-build activity and equipment or system development/acquisition) that several companies will have to work together?  If you have partners or major subcontractors, address the client’s legitimate concerns:

• How will the companies manage their interfaces, both contractually and practically, day-to-day?
• Who will be responsible if things go south?  How will they even know that things have gone bad?
• What’s the back-up plan if one company fails?

Thinking about risk from the client’s point of view allows you to submit a better risk-management response, in whatever form it takes, and also to show risk awareness throughout your entire proposal.  The company marketers don’t always like it – they often see it as negative – but nothing says “Been there, done that, and done good!” more clearly than a good risk answer.

 

Many RFPs require narratives on the bidder’s understanding of risk and approach to risk management.  Often, what bidders provide wouldn’t be out of place in a textbook: plain-vanilla risk management processes that lay out standard identification, assessment, and mitigation steps.  Boring!  Worse, they show no sign of being tailored for this scope of work: Indeed, they show no sign of ever having done this scope of work. 

Now, granted, clients can do better than to ask about “approach.”  But even if they do give you this fuzzy question, it’s not that hard to do a better response.  Start by thinking about things from the client’s point of view. 

Procurement Environment

Is this the first time the client has bought this product/infrastructure/service, or the twentieth?

• If it’s the first time, allow for their likely high level of  unease characterized by ill-defined concerns: They don’t know what they don’t know, but they know that this could bite.
• If they’ve done it before, find out the history of similar procurements, good and bad, to assess their probable level of anxiety and their specific concerns. If armies are always getting ready to fight the last war, the rest of us aren’t necessarily much smarter!

In fact, while we’re at it, how sophisticated is this client from an overall procurement point of view?  In general, “more sophisticated” is “more better,” implying more mature, predictable (even reasonable) practices and, likely, more ability to specify their requirement in a way that reduces their contracting risk and your confusion: All good.

Just one more point.  You’d think that government contracting would be pretty mature, with established, not to say rigid, practices.  In Canada, you’d be half right. It is true of the folks on the process side: the contracting experts.  It’s not always true of the folks on the requirements side: the technical experts, who sometimes work on only one RFP in their entire career.  That one and only (or even just that first one) could be the one you’re bidding on.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can mean that you need to think a little more carefully about their perspective, especially on risk.

Thinking about risk from the client’s point of view allows you to submit a better risk-management response, in whatever form it takes, and also to show risk awareness throughout your entire proposal.  The company marketers don’t always like it – they often see it as negative – but nothing says “Been there, done that, and done good!” more clearly than a good risk answer.