Strategize – Research – Analysis – Capture – Manage
Strategize
In The Art of War, ancient Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun Tzu declared, “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war – defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
In the world of government contracting, Rainmaker believes that the true purpose(s) and underlying objective(s) of any solicitation and its contracting agency must be determined before the writing begins. In other words, “The contract needs to be won before the writing of the proposal begins.”
To this end, we introduce Rainmaker’s Opportunity Management System – a proprietary and proven Government Contractor Growth Management System designed to eliminate the cost, hassle, and frustration of locating, vetting, and managing government proposals and the time-consuming and expensive processes associated with capture management and contract pursuit.
Onboarding is our knowledge-gathering and information-collection phase. During Onboarding, we collect information, we gather knowledge, and we collect goals and objectives. We collect all relative and pertinent data and information regarding a company and its key personnel’s experience, past performance, expertise, and capabilities. And we do this very quickly and with minimal interference or interruption in a client’s operations.
Development of Performance Profile and Key Word Analysis is our design and building phase (think of the architectural design phase of a construction project) where we take the information we collected during Onboarding and dichotomize it, catalog it, and analyze it. From this information, we develop a company’s Performance/Opportunity Profile – the compilation and analysis of everything the company does, where and when it has done it, and what it seeks to do in the future.
The Performance/Opportunity Profile allows us to match a company’s capabilities and experience to the current (within 60 days), short/mid-range (60 to 180 days), and long-term (180+ days) forecasts of contract opportunities. When the matching process has been completed, we have a list, or Pipeline, of federal, state, local, and/or educational institution contract opportunity that falls within the company’s wheelhouse.
Research
Creation of the Pipeline – using the Performance/Opportunity Profile and Key Word Analysis, Rainmaker will Compare the company’s experience, expertise, and attributes to potential government contract opportunities and government agency upcoming contract forecasts. We will Develop a Client-specific Pipeline of vetted contract opportunities that fall within the Client’s area of experience and expertise. Upon the completion of the creation of the Pipeline, we will have matched and mapped “What the company does, what types of contracts it can win, and which contract opportunities should be winnable” to all potential contract opportunities.
Analysis
Pipeline Analysis and Examination – during the Pipeline Analysis and Examination Phase, we Qualify the opportunity and move from “which contract opportunities should be or could be winnable” to “which contract opportunities are winnable”.
Capture
Opportunity Report: Rainmaker will Create an Opportunity Report for each winnable contract opportunity that includes a comprehensive breakdown of all contract information including, but not limited to, the agency, dollar value, period of performance, analysis of incumbent contractor(s), if applicable, dissection of the PWS or SOW, history of contract, keyword matches, scoring analysis, and estimated solicitation date. Rainmaker will analyze the Gap Analysis and make recommendations for how to overcome any Client limitation or missing proposal elements including the need to engage teaming and/or joint venture partners.
Manage – Managing Each Opportunity
With the completion of the phases and actions noted above and armed with a detailed Opportunity Report for each winnable opportunity, a meeting(s) is held with the client to discuss all initial conclusions and recommendations.
- Each process is discussed and modified based on input and/or direction of the client.
- After discussion, each opportunity is confirmed by the client to be winnable and of interest or not winnable.
- Those opportunities that are confirmed by the client as winnable and of interest are entered into the formal Capture Plan.
Implementing and Managing The Capture Plan – High-Level Overview of Plan, Generic, to be Specialized to Client
- We build the capture plan and develop a realistic, achievable plan that can be accomplished within the time available and against which capture progress can be measured.
- We determine the government customer’s objectives and requirements to fully understand the government customer’s scope of work and its objectives to be achieved.
- We determine how to link the government customer’s needs and objectives/goals to the services and solutions offered by the client.
- We perform a formal analysis of the competition – the creation of an assessment of all competitors. This is Rainmaker’s formal Competitor Analysis and its associated processes and conclusions.
- We develop a plan, when possible, to position our client with the government customer, where we introduce the company and its services and solutions to the client and offer our suggestions for how to shape the procurement strategy.
- We fine-tune our plan to win (our win strategy) – we determine our client’s (and its competitor’s) strengths and weaknesses to ensure we can resolve all of our client’s actual or potential weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and overcome any strengths, advantages, and/or attributes of the competition,
- Determine a formal plan for how to best capitalize on our client’s strengths and discriminators and/or the weaknesses of the competition.
- We determine and execute a teaming strategy. Using the Gap Analysis and Competitor Analysis, we identify if there is a need for team members (subcontractors) or joint-venture partners to augment and bolster our ability to win.