Development in Business

The Business Development (BD) process in Government Contracting relates to the identification of suitable contracts and preparation of proposals in response to Government solicitations for these contracts. It typically consists of five separate and distinct phases:

The Positioning Phase (tied to the company's Business and Strategic Plans), where the company decides on the direction they want to take to increase market share. The Pursuit Phase, where the overall Marketing Plan is developed and then separated into the accounts that will identify individual targets to pursue

The Proposal Phase, where the response to the RFP is prepared.

The Post Submission Phase, where clarifications, proposal modifications and negotiations (if any) are prepared

The Operations Phase, where the contract is mobilized for Phase-in, if won - or lessons learned from the Government's debrief is collected, if lost,One important aspect of the BD process is that it is most effective as a closed-loop system, in which the Operations Phase information feeds into the Positioning Phase for an ever-changing system that quickly reacts to changing conditions in the marketplace. This is often referred to as the BD Lifecycle.

Many separate work groups or business units support the BD process, from corporate management to the operations staff to production personnel and administrative staff inside the company, to third party Subject Matter Experts (SME) or professional proposal preparation personnel like those provided by third party consulting firms.

Positioning Phase Some of the tasks performed during the major phases of the BD process include:

Defining the company's direction

Using data from the Marketing Plan, establish target selection criteria and prioritize targets

Forming strategic alliances with other companies that can make good teaming partners that will lead to expanding the company's resume in new markets

Analyze the gaps between where the company is today, and where the company needs to be, what it needs to have, etc to meet the projected goals

Establish the various Lines of Business (LOB) and develop the account plans (by customer, region, etc) to support the LOBs

Establish the necessary overall Bid and Proposal (B&P) budgets to support the accounts

Pursuit Phase

Establish and develop the Capture Plans for targets identified within the Account Plans

Develop an understanding of each individual customers' needs and articulate these in each Capture Plan

Establish a customer Call Plan and meet with them to discover gaps and present solutions

Locate Key Personnel suitable for the job

Locate required subcontractors to fill niche task requirements or small business subcontracting goals

Locate and commit one or more "guy on the ground" that understands details that may not be disclosed during the procurement cycle (make sure he does not have a conflict of interest!) Redact all of the information into a Bid/No Bid document for analysis

Proposal Phase

Hold strategy sessions and discuss all known information, and discover any final gaps

Develop the Concept of Operation (CONOPS)

Refine and finalize the B&P budget

Mobilize the Proposal and Cost Teams

Attend the Site Visit/Pre-proposal conference

Conduct Final Bid/No Bid for Management

Prepare, refine, produce, and deliver proposal

Post Submission Phase

Follow up to client

Orals Presentation if required

Archive working proposal documents into library

Respond to Questions/clarifications from customer

Revise proposal as needed

Operations Phase

Mobilize for Contract Phase-in

Negotiate contract modification as needed

Develop lessons learned (entire team)

Collect and archive contract performance data for future proposals

This is just a simple list of some of the major tasks performed during the process, there are many other sub-tasks that must be performed to accomplish these, and there are many opportunities to do them incorrectly. This is often frustrating for companies, as they are unable to understand why they're not experiencing the success they believe they should have, or that their competition has, because they are dutifully performing each step of the process.

What's important here is that merely performing the step is not the same as performing it correctly. Another dynamic of this is that it can be difficult to admit that sometimes we need help, or it could be that upper management would take a dim view of our abilities if we asked for outside help with our internal processes.

Additionally, many large (and some small) companies need help, but don't know they need it (or in extreme cases, are too arrogant to admit it). This is normally characterized by a high turnover of business development personnel as they struggle in vain to be successful using a broken process.