Our approach to proposal support services is different than most everyone else.

We view proposal support as a far more process driven function in which smart, experienced professionals interact with empowered client organizations seeking to win and grow by leveraging our combined expertise and experience across hundreds of client engagements each year.  Our proposal professionals span 26+ different industries, 27 different countries, and more than 297 engagements each year.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

74% Win Rate

We win more than 7 out of every 10 projects we work on as a company; this win rate has increased every year since our founding in 2009. The reason, in part, is because we take losing hard - very hard.  We track it, monitor the reasons why, and seek to create solutions and processes that eradicate each and every factor under our control that contributed to a losing outcome.  Thus, our proposal capabilities evolve, optimize, and flex to the procurement environment, competitive landscape, and needs of the end customer.

image1-2

In short, by taking our lumps in losing, we increase our capabilities and improve our approach, narratives, and processes to ensure that we learn from these experiences in a way that allows RWCO to expand its capability and allows our clients to grow in ways that are beyond their expectations. Our approach to proposal support services in unique in very significant ways:

Dedicated Staff and Client Alignment

We provide a dedicated project team that is led by experienced business professionals that have a proven track record of winning business through the proposal process. We then allocate these individuals to the client in a focused manner that expands across a complete proposal.  Thus, rather than a than a revolving door of ad-hoc consultants that work for twenty different proposal firms, we provide staff that have a real say in our business and care about their professional reputation and that of the firm, and internalize the goals and objectives of the client in ways that magnify their attention to detail and focus on getting a winning outcome.

In essence, we view client engages as an exercise in changing lives, growing organizations, and building the relationship between consultant, client, and end customer. Contrast this with a traditional proposal writing model of writing by the hour and you quickly get an orientation to the engagement that is more of a transaction than a mutual relationship on growing business.

Shared Focus on the Outcome

We deploy our firm's capabilities in full support of a client's goals and proposal needs. In doing so, our service culture is orientated toward working together with the client to ensure success. Perhaps in no other way is this orientation more evident than in how we attack proposal challenges and projects. We utilize a firm fixed price (FFP) project quote that is submitted to the potential client prior to starting the project. This FFP provides a complete project fee against a defined proposal effort, complete with timelines, deliverables, and roles/responsibilities. By doing it this way, our approach aligns our interest with that of client by mitigating fee escalation due to procurement submission deadlines shifting, procurement amendments, and other variables well beyond the control of the client.  Rather than punishing the client for factors outside of their control, we view the opportunity to press forward and hold project fees stable as a way of demonstrating our commitment to the success of the client. In doing so, client knows the cost of the proposal support services well in advance of the project start and can weigh that factor as they evaluate a go/no go or bid/no bid decision.

People and Process Matter

Because we invest in our proposal professionals and cross-share knowledge across our organization, the quality of our proposal support services are optimized by organization learning and our culture of client commitment.  Our consultants then deploy a defined proposal support process that is consistent across all of our proposal support service engagements.  This way, we can hold constant the nature and structure of our proposal support in a way that allows for process improvement. Should we win (or lose) due to a specific element in either our people or process, we take that knowledge, internalize it, and install it back into our People and Process elements in a matter that further improves our organization and enhances the win probability of our clients.

Our expertise and processes are battle tested across clients large and small has a proved track record of helping small, medium and large organization improve their proposal performance. We generate proposal wins for our clients through consistency in our people and process. We apply proven processes that accelerate the pace of getting into the review phase. This means optimizing data calls and color reviews to afford the client more "think time". This enhances the quality, increases the proposal win probability, and alleviates the pressure on client personnel.

Process Improvement and Color Reviews

A critical element of our approach is the belief that the color review process (Blue, Pink, Red, Green, Gold, etc.) is a key determine in the winning and losing of a given proven. Through constant reflection and analysis of our process, we have refined our processes to increase the amount of time our clients have in the color review process. Clients are no longer attempting to jam in a series of color reviews into a very tight proposal submission timeline that compressed due to the lag in draft materials, data calls, and content writing. This approach, which we refer to as "R.A.C.E. BPRG" gets drafts out to the client sooner and in a more complete fashion, thereby allows the client more time to review, think, and refine materials rather than sprint through the material in one or two businesses days.

image2

The quality of the materials improves, the morale of the client firm improves, and the win probability of a given proposal increases as a simple result of holding the process constant and optimizing our proposal support services approach on an ongoing basis.

Contact us for a free consultation

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.