QUESTION:-Locate a website that provides suggestions for developing effective proposals.

Compare and contrast this information with what is presented below:

Creating a Winning Proposal

It is important to remember that the proposal process is competitive. A customer uses an RFP to solicit competing proposals from contractors. Each contractor,

therefore, must keep in mind that its proposal will be competing with other contractors proposals to be selected by the customer as the winner. Submitting a

proposal that meets the customers statement of work and requirements in the RFP is not sufficient to guarantee selection as the winning contractor. Many or

all of the proposals will likely meet the requirements. The customer will select the one that it expects will provide the best value.

A proposal is a selling document; it is not a technical report. In the proposal, the contractor must convince the customer that the contractor

Understands what the customer is looking for.

Can carry out the proposed project.

Will provide the greatest value to the customer.

Is the best contractor to address the need or solve the problem.

Will capitalize on its successful experience with previous, related projects.

Will do the work professionally.

Will achieve the intended results.

Will complete the project within budget and on schedule.

Will satisfy the customer.

In the proposal, the contractor must highlight the unique factors that differentiate it from competing contractors. The proposal must emphasize the benefits to

the customer if the customer selects the contractor to perform the project. Key partners and subcontractors can complement a contractors expertise.

Identifying and including appropriate partners or subcontractors to perform specific key tasks on a proposed project can provide a significant competitive advantage,

especially if those organizations have specific technical expertise that is crucial to the project, have an excellent reputation, or perhaps already have

good credibility with the customer. Proposals should be written in a simple, concise manner; they should not be

wordy or redundant. They should use terminology with which the customer is familiar and avoid abbreviations, acronyms, jargon, and other words that the

customer may not know or understand. Simple illustrations and graphics should be used when possible. Overly complex illustrations should be avoided; several

simple graphics will likely be easier for the customer to understand than one complicated graphic. When a point is made or an approach or concept proposed,

it should be supported with logic, rationale, and/or data. Proposals must specifically address the customers requirements as laid out in the RFP. Proposals written

in generalities will cause the customer to question whether the contractor really understands what needs to be done and how to do it. For example, suppose

one of the requirements in a customers RFP is the design of a specialized piece of machinery that will produce 20 parts per minute. A contractor proposal stating that the machine to be designed will, in fact, produce 20 parts per minute is more convincing than one stating that the machinery will be designed to produce the maximum number of parts per minute. The customer will be doubtful about the latter statement because maximum could mean something less than 20 parts per minute. Finally, proposals must be realistic in terms of the proposed scope, cost, and schedule in the eyes of the customer. Proposals that promise too much or are overly optimistic may seem unbelievable and again raise doubt about whether the contractor understands what needs to be done and how to do it.

Measuring Proposal Success Contractors measure the success of their proposal efforts by the number of times their proposals are selected by customers and/or by the total dollar value of their proposals that are selected. A measure that is often used is known as the win ratio, which is the percentage of the number or dollar value of the contractors proposals that result in contractual agreements with customers. The win ratio can be expressed as the percentage of the number of proposals a contractor won out of the total number of proposals the contractor submitted to various customers over a particular time period. An alternative method of determining the win ratio is to base it on the total dollar value of proposals that the contractor won as a percentage of the total dollar value of all the proposals the contractor submitted to various customers during a specific time period. The former Chapter 3 Developing Project Proposals 89 Copyright 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-202 approach gives equal weight to all proposals, whereas the later approach gives more weight to proposals with larger dollar amounts. For example, assume that a contractor submits four different proposals to four different customers in a particular month, for the amounts of $120,000, $50,000, $250,000, and $80,000; however, only one of their proposals, the one valued at $250,000, was selected by a client. The contractors win ratio based on the number of proposals submitted is 0.25 or 25 percent (1 of 4), but their win ratio based on dollar value is 50 percent ($250,000 of $500,000). Some contractors have a strategy of submitting proposals in response to as many RFPs as they can with the hope that they will eventually win their fair share. Their philosophy is that if they do not submit a proposal, then they do not have any chance to win, but by submitting more proposals, they increase their chances of winning more contracts. Other contractors are more selective in submitting proposals; they respond to only those RFPs where they think they have a better-than-average chance of winning the contract. These contractors seriously consider the bid/no-bid decision process in responding to RFPs and submit fewer proposals but attempt to have a high win ratio.