Why are My Capture Efforts Failing?

Federal Business Capture - Part IV, The Basics

Almost any shortfalls in your capture bid and proposal efforts will fall into three basic categories; either there is a business development organizational issue, a training issue or a resource issue. In other words, if you are properly organized, trained and resourced and you are still losing contract bids, then you may need a new Business Development (BD) team.  Of course, nothing is ever quite that simple so let's look briefly at each of these elements.

BD Organization.  There is no "one size fits all" solution.  Small companies may have one dedicated BD person or none, but the roles and responsibilities need to be established, understood and followed within the company.  For somewhat larger companies, I personally like to separate "strategic business development" from "business operations" roles and functions.  Your strategic BD personnel are looking at larger opportunities all the way up to the bid/no bid decision.  If a bid decision is made, the hand-off is made to the business operations manager who takes the bid all the way through the proposal process but is not the proposal manager.  The hand-off is critical.  If you "drop the baton" in the hand-off you will NOT win the race.   

Training. This is easy to discuss.  If your capture personnel have not been formally trained and mentored through the process then they will most likely fail.  Just sending someone to Shipley training is NOT sufficient; you need to determine if they understand the process and are able to execute a proper capture effort (this is where the mentoring is critical).

Resourcing.  You need to resource your capture efforts e.g. sufficient personnel, training, time etc.  If you have more opportunities in your pipeline than you can adequately resource, then you will not succeed.  

Good Hunting!

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