Opportunity pipelines carry the fuel that keeps the home fires burning (08-10-2006)

If Norm Augustine ever said "Hope is not a strategy!" he was right on. Over the years CAI/SISCo has audited opportunity pipelines compiled by some of the biggest names in government contracting. Our conclusion is that most pipelines include a large percentage of "hope" including non-starters (the reasons are varied) and a good number of marginal opportunities. To address this issue and help business development planners and managers focus on better ways of employing their critical resources, we recently formalized two new offerings.

Our first new offering concerns the management of task order requests (TORs), task order (TO) proposals, TO awards and TO reporting requirements for companies with several multiple award contract vehicles. This is a critical problem that is a major issue today -- and it will get worse. When NETWORX and ALLIANT join the ranks of the mega GWACs and other IDIQ contracts, TORs will rain down on contract holders and their subcontractors.

CAI/SISCo helps solve this problem by defining and developing processes to effectively target task opportunities, manage TORs and develop TOR proposal responses. Firms with in-place management solutions will be in a superior position - the time for action is now!

CAI/SISCo provides 3 services in this area:

• Our TOR/TO Management System Definition offering defines the requirements, workflows, and trades off implementaion options for managing TORs and responses with a view to maximizing the potential of the multiple award vehicles that your firm holds or is a party to;
• To better qualify opportunities before they become TORs we offer TO Opportunity Research to perform "deep dive" investigations of opportunities and their acquisition and competitive environments to support early pursue/not pursue decisions; and
• We also offer our TOR Evaluation Module tool to allow the general flow of TORs to be rapidly analyzed and rank-ordered to determine how your enterprise should be allocating scarce bid and proposal resources.

Managing Your New Business Pipeline

Our second new offering covers the development, qualification and maintenance of a realistic pipeline of business opportunities aligned to your firm's lines of business - an activity that is fundamental to the continued success and growth of any contracting organization. This is especially true for firms that have grown rapidly through acquisitions such that the resulting entity, and its new business opportunity pipeline, are difficult to plan, develop and de-conflict.

A CAI/SISCo Opportunity Pipeline Development & Qualification Study provides the information and analysis you need to develop, confirm or expand the basis for including opportunities into a viable pipeline. Moreover our input supports decision making such as deciding whether or not to pursue or commit significant resources to an opportunity as either a prime bidder or subcontractor. Our primary research and subsequent analysis provides timely “street” versions of the competitive situation for each opportunity - the proverbial “other hand against which to clap.”

Both of our new services are supported with primary research. On-demand maintenance is available to update or maintain existing task order management implementations and opportunity pipeline information.

Good luck and happy hunting!