McConnell International

Our client was an 8-A graduate who needed to win new competitive contracts as a mid-tier company. MI convinced the client's executives to bid on a very competitive, major procurement and coached the client throughout the proposal process. Consequently, the client was one of five awardees of the Independent Verification and Validation Services (IV&V) track.

Initially, our client made a no-bid decision on the opportunity, believing that they had little chance of success as a mid-tier company in this large open competition. MI determined, through our market research, pre-competition intelligence, and unique network of contacts that our client had an excellent reputation among key decision makers in the agency and that our client would be very competitive in capturing a slot to provide IV&V services — the key core competency on which our client launched its presence in the federal market place several years ago. At MI's urging, our client reversed their no-bid decision and responded to the RFP.

MI was our clients "win coach" throughout the proposal life cycle by:

• Developing win strategies and win themes with our client
• Suggesting teaming and competitive cost approaches
• Providing a profound understanding of the government buyer's real needs and hot buttons
• Ensuring the vocabulary used in the proposal was buyer-friendly
• Coaching the oral presenters so they could anticipate and have answers for key questions that the buyers can relate to and understand
• Supporting the development of their written and oral proposals
• Participating in their red, blue and gold teams to sharpen the win themes and focus attention in their written proposal on the issues most significant to the agency's key decision makers.

Post-award, MI is aggressively following through to help our client capture task order wins under the newly won contract.