Trust the Process: More than Checking a List

Price to Win is always an ongoing process, which undergoes many iterations before an actual proposal is ever delivered.  Richter & Company’s training courses are designed to give you the tools and templates you need to maximize the benefit of your competitive intelligence and price to win efforts.  Actionable intelligence is derived from following the process, while trusting the skills of your analysts to deliver quality results to your capture team.

But it’s more than simply checking a list:  the process is designed to lay the foundation of your winning proposal.

Plan work based on requirements.  Designate resources.  Can you deliver on the work proposed?  Although it sounds obvious, make sure you’re bidding on work you can and should win.

Baseline the opportunity and customer.  Spend some time getting to know your customer, and what they’re actually looking to buy.  Get to know the contracting shop as well as the end user, and understand that you’re going to need to address all customers in proposing your solution.

Identify and analyze the overall competitive field.  Identify who else is going to bid, and their relationship with the customer.  What does their solution look like?  The competitive field will change as time goes on:  who has left the competition, and why?  Who has joined the competition, and why?  Identify any teammates and suppliers, and determine how their addition to the team will affect solutions, and pricing.

Develop and test RFP-based models.  Forget the gold plating, and the standard set by the competition.  Build a bottoms-up model, based strictly around RFP requirements.  How will your solution add value?  Rank your solution based on the requirements set forth in Sections L & M.

Prepare analysis of key competitors.  Once the RFP is imminent, look again at your key competitors.  Identify strengths and weaknesses of their solution.  Mitigate their strengths by offering value to the customer.  Speak to the things they care about, and emphasize your own strong, low-risk solution.  Ghost weaknesses by highlighting your own strengths.  Be aware of how competitors will leverage their solutions and ghost your company.

Evaluate and rank key competitors.  Build out solutions for your competitors.  What is their offering likely to include?  How will it be received by the customer?  Be sure to do due diligence in looking at past successes; what stories will they tell?  How will they game their solutions?

Identify and analyze pWin enhancers.  Once your analysis is complete, it’s time to finalize your story.  Identify any final solution gaps, and address them:  team as necessary.  Close in on any gaming opportunities.  And decide on your key messages and discriminators that really differentiate your solution from your competitors.

For more information regarding Competitive Analysis and Price to Win, contact Richter & Company.  Since 2006, our proven processes have helped clients win over $30B in new business.