Description
Description
This training course shows you how to win the right multiple award indefinite delivery vehicles (IDV) and win task orders on those vehicles. Today, the name of the game in winning Government contracts is getting the right portfolio of IDVs. This is how the Government prefers to get companies under contract. Multiple award IDVs (that include Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts, GSA schedules, BPAs, and various ordering agreements) are awarded to limited groups of Government contractors that bid against each other for task orders (also called delivery orders, call orders, and so on). Once awarded, IDVs enable companies to grow quickly because they can win task orders within weeks, as opposed to winning single-award contracts that may take months or years. According to Bloomberg Government analysts, here are some multiple award indefinite delivery contracts facts to ponder:
- Federal Government prefers IDVs. Total IDIQ spending has been steadily increasing despite a decrease in total procurement spending. The law requires all contracts with a potential value of at least $100 million to be awarded through IDIQs. In other words, more work is going to be awarded under IDVs, and if you don’t hold the right contract, you won’t able to compete for the perfect contracts for your company.
- Only about 3,600 companies out of hundreds of thousands of Government contractors participate in non-schedule IDVs, and this number has stayed flat in the past few years. This means that all the money goes to a small fraction of companies who are in the know. Isn’t it the time to join their ranks or even dominate that relatively small pool?
- Agencies keep selecting the same companies while they increase the number of competitors on their IDVs. It means that the companies who have learned “the system” for winning on these vehicles will continue winning and growing their IDIQ footprint. Until you understand how they do it, you won’t be able to catch up—which is why you should take this course.
This training will show you how to win IDIQs against dozens, if not hundreds of competitors, including preparing a competitive price proposal. This class will also teach you to win task order proposals. Proposal deadlines and page counts keep shrinking while competition gets even tougher, making it harder to win proposals even when you are the most qualified bidder. Responses barely make the deadline because proposal managers learn about many task order requests for proposal only as they are released. We will show you a way to maximize your task order win rate. The class is 60% lecture, 30% discussion, and 10% exercises. This course will provide a recipe book for winning multiple award contracts and turning them from expensive boondoggles into a force multiplier. The experts who teach our business development, capture, and proposal training courses are highly experienced currently practicing proposal professionals whose years of successful experience in Government acquisition and training allow them to offer valuable insights to our students. Our instructors can answer tough questions as they come up during the course. They can also tailor the material to their students’ specific challenges, and share their experience based on the most current realities. Check our instructor’s bios on our About us page.
Course Curriculum
Learning Objectives
The participants will learn and practice skills in:
- Understand the IDIQ trends in Government procurement.
- Determining what IDIQ portfolio a company should have considering its core competencies and target agencies.
- Qualifying an IDIQ for fit and conducting a capture effort to best position to win an IDIQ contract.
- Contributing to an IDV win not only as a prime but also as a subcontractor.
- Developing the IDIQ proposal content with the right answers to win the competition.
- Applying the IDIQ pricing strategies.
- Understanding why many companies fail to compete effectively and make good money on an IDIQ.
- Cracking the “code” of an IDIQ to determine task order patterns and win strategies.
- Positioning the right resources to help write persuasive and compliant task order proposals.
- Adding more face value as a proposal manager on fast-turnaround task order pursuits.
- Running mini-capture and creating an IDIQ specific Customer Map.
- Establishing an infrastructure and environment necessary to maximize the task order win rate.
- Developing an IDIQ-specific process for winning task orders.
- Developing a reusable toolset for implementing a task order process.
- Enacting a comprehensive marketing plan for the IDIQ.
- Getting the entire company involved in winning more task orders.
- Building a proposal library for winning fast turnaround task orders.
- Preparing a concise text and information-packed graphics to convey your competitive advantages in an extremely page-limited proposal format.
Course Highlights
Module 1: Introduction and Learning Objectives
- IDV foundations- what are the vehicles and how can a company make money on an IDIQ.
- IDV benefits and trends in Government procurement.
Module 2: Understanding IDIQs and Defining Your Company’s MAC Needs
- Why the Government likes IDIQs.
- The types of IDIQs.
- Navigating through IDIQ terminology.
- How different IDIQs work and what it means for your business development efforts.
- Top 20 IDIQs.
- Products and services the Government buys through non-schedule IDVs.
- Top agencies that spent money on IDVs.
- The differences between IDIQs and requirements proposals.
- Problems with leveraging IDIQs.
- Techniques to determine what specific IDIQs your company needs. Exercise: Determine what IDVs a company needs to have in its portfolio.
Module 3: Preparing to Win an IDIQ
- Gathering the key information you need to know about an IDIQ to determine whether it is a fit.
- Determining proposal preparation details for solution development and resource planning.
- Conducting an IDIQ capture effort, including customer engagement, intelligence gathering, win strategy analysis, IDIQ-specific competitive analysis, teaming, and solution development. Exercise: Perform a competitive analysis for an IDIQ with multiple competitors.
Module 4: Developing a Solution and a Winning Proposal for a MAC
- Developing management, technical, past performance, and other solutions.
- Planning for the proposal.
- Establishing proposal security given the “incestuous” teaming and non-exclusive subcontractors, while gaining maximum benefit from team’s knowledge.
- Special considerations for multiple award contract proposal reviews.
- Proposal management best practices for winning IDIQs.
- Techniques for running an effective virtual proposal with multiple teaming partners.
- How to support proposals when you are a subcontractor and not the prime. Discussion: What best practices have the participants followed in preparing an IDIQ proposal?
Module 5: Winning IDIQs Through Content
- Mastering the elements that are common from an IDIQ to IDIQ.
- How to address the common proposal solution elements correctly to meet and exceed Government evaluators’ expectations.
- IDIQ pricing strategies. Discussion: What IDIQ pricing strategies do participants find most applicable to their scenarios?
Module 6: The Secrets of Making Money on Multiple Award Contracts
- The only way to make money on a multiple award IDIQs.
- The reason why the number of companies winning IDIQs and task orders grows.
- The secret of how to start “cracking the code” of your IDIQ.
- How to determine task order patterns.
- How to position to win the majority of task orders. Exercise: Identify patterns for a specific IDIQ.
Module 7: Organizing to Prepare Winning Task and Delivery Orders
- Characteristics of a task order request for proposal.
- How task orders differ in format even on the same IDIQ.
- Personnel roles and internal and external resources necessary to win task orders.
- What atypical proposal role is in fast deadline and page-limited task order proposals.
- Training necessary for your resources to maximize effectiveness and efficiency in preparing winning task order proposals. Exercise: Given a company-specific scenario and resource constraints, determine the best path of action to establish a high-functioning task order shop.
Module 8: Establishing an Infrastructure and Environment Necessary to Maximize Your Task Order Win Rate
- The tools you will need to develop a task order winning machine.
- The resources required to prepare proposals more efficiently and effectively.
- Developing a Task Order Manual to keep the team on the same page.
- Determining the marketing rules of engagement for your IDIQ team.
- Defining a unified customer message. Exercise: Determine marketing rules of engagement for a specific scenario.
Module 9: Developing an IDIQ-Specific Process for Winning Task Orders
- Tailoring the process to the specific IDIQ procurement processes.
- Techniques for developing a streamlined task order process.
- Example of a task order process.
- Conducting a mini-capture for task orders.
- Creating a Customer Map.
- Influencing the requirements during task order capture.
- Developing and enacting an integrated marketing plan for the IDIQ.
- Developing a reusable toolset for implementing your task order process. Discussion: What processes do the participants organizations need to implement or optimize?
Module 10: Developing the Task Order Engine to Ensure Wins
- Setting up and tracking task order details in a pipeline.
- Tracking customer-specific information important in task order wins.
- Techniques for setting up an IDIQ-centered proposal library and developing reusable materials.
- Types of proposal collateral to keep in the library.
- Involving operations personnel in increasing your task order win rate. Discussion: What are the actions your organization will take to increase your task order win rate?
Module 11: Secrets of Preparing Winning Task Order Proposals
- The biggest value proposal managers can add to running fast turnaround proposals.
- Examples and characteristics of text specific to task order proposals.
- Examples of info graphics used in winning task order proposals.
- Rules for developing task order pricing.
- Additional resource recommendations.
- Exercise: Edit text as appropriate for a page limited task order.
