After an unsuccessful bid, disappointed bidders sometimes present hyper-technical protests in a passionate, yet misplaced, attempt to protect their economic interests. Many of these protests ignore the wide discretion GAO gives to agencies in their evaluation pf proposals, and ultimate selection of an awardee. Bidders on Architecture and Engineering (A&E) contracts must be particularly aware that…
As most federal contractors are well aware, significant contracting opportunities are routinely set aside for small businesses, to the exclusion of large businesses. Confusion remains, however, concerning the concept of affiliation -- and how it can impact whether a given company is eligble for small business set-asides. The Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA)…
A recent decision by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) illustrates the importance of properly meeting a solicitation’s requirements in full, to include page limits and font sizes. While these may seem like insignificant details, failure to follow the instructions to the letter can mean the difference between a proposal being evaluated on its technical merits and being eliminated from…
When incumbent contractors passed over for follow-on contracts seek to protest the award decision, they often challenge the evaluation of staffing and/or key personnel, arguing that the awardee’s proposal could not possibly be as strong as theirs because they proposed to use the current, experienced staff, something that the awardee was not able to do. If the incumbent learns after the award that…
A recent article discussed the important difference between patent ambiguities obvious on the face of a solicitation and latent ambiguities that only come to light after contract award. A more recent decision of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) provides an important reminder that the Q&A process, which is meant in part to identify and resolve ambiguities in the solicitation, sometimes…
One of the reasons it’s so important to read solicitations carefully is that such review can help you identify any ambiguities before submitting your proposal. If the ambiguity is obvious, or “patent”, you must protest it before the proposal due date or not at all. In other words, an offeror can’t wait to see who wins the contract before deciding to gripe about an ambiguity that may have hurt its…
When assessing opportunities and preparing proposals, reading and understanding the contents of the solicitation is imperative. If you don’t know what the solicitation requires, it can be very hard to prepare a responsive, much less winning, proposal. But focusing exclusively on the words themselves – separated from their proper context – can also lead offerors astray. This point was brought home…
If you want to win contract awards, your proposal needs to clearly and persuasively explain why you are the right choice. The words you choose matter, as does the way you arrange them. Indeed, as the recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) decision in Federal Acquisition Services Alliant Joint Venture, B-411842.2 (November 9, 2015) starkly demonstrates, sloppy syntax, grammar, and…
Agency comments during discussions often articulate a weakness or deficiency. Sometimes, however, the Government is also simply asking questions – identifying specific issues that should be addressed – and affording an offeror the opportunity to explain its proposal. When that happens, contractors need to be ready to capitalize on that opportunity to explain, but not always necessarily to change,…
Two recent decisions by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) highlight the importance of making clear, in your proposal, that your proposed staff and key personnel are locked-in and will be available and ready to go at the start of the proposed effort. This is particularly so where the solicitation requires express availability commitment letters. In each of these cases the offeror…
Preparing a contract proposal can be like writing a story. But while a story involves plot and character development, a proposal instead focuses on how best to explain why the offeror and its product/services are the best response to the agency’s stated needs. In order to be successful, the explanation must include only information that supports the message being conveyed.…
It’s relatively easy for disappointed offerors to latch onto perceived unbalanced pricing as the basis to protest an award. As soon as they see pricing they consider out of balance, they are off to the races. It can be much harder, however, to win such a protest, even where unbalanced pricing has been demonstrated and the agency has failed to consider the risks posed by such pricing as required…
