Situation: A company provides market research, technical assistance, and related services for clients. It receives most of its work from proposals. Both writing successful proposals and carrying out the work of accepted proposals are critical capabilities. Should they bring in external resources to increase the number of proposals submitted? Where should these resources be focused?

Advice from the CEOs:

• Identify the most critical tasks that contributed to proposals that have been awarded.
  • Determine, between writing and editing, which tasks are most critical. Focus internal resources on these tasks and seek outside resources to assist with the less critical tasks.
  • Provide incentives to those who write grants that are awarded.
• What portions of the proposals could be written using external resources?
  • Background information, including corporate history, tends to be repetitive between proposals. However, this material is also difficult for an outsider to master.
  • One option is to secure outside resources that will commit to the company for a long time. These resources would have the time to learn and master the historical data.
  • Another option is to use the company’s database to store and code historical data. These data could then be managed by a less expensive internal resource and collected with appropriate filters for each new proposal that arises.
• Codify the repetitive source material in a database. Secure software that makes it easy to filter and recall selected data for the writers of new proposals.
• An alternative to using outside resources is to develop an internal coordinator who is master of this database and who is responsible for gathering appropriately filtered data to support the efforts of the company’s proposal writers.
  • By taking care of this portion of the proposal writing task, it will be easier to find enthusiastic project leaders to take on the more creative aspects of new proposals.

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