Government Contracts Monitor

Know Your Customer: Don’t Make Unfounded or Counter-Productive Assumptions

August 27, 2014

A recent GAO decision demonstrates the importance of knowing and understanding your customer, and avoiding making assumptions in preparing your proposal that may not accord with the customer’s mindset and may come back to bite you during proposal evaluation. The Bowen Group, B-409332.3 decided August 6, 2014.

This protest involved a procurement by the United States Marine Corps for support services to the Wounded Warrior Regiment Recovery Care Coordinator (RCC) Program. Conducted as a small business set-aside, the RFP envisioned a single, fixed-price, contract, on a best-value basis, for a twelve-month base period and two one-year options. The best-value analysis was to consider five factors: (1) experience of key personnel, (2) management plans, (3) corporate experience, (4) past performance, and (5) price. The four non-price factors were each individually more important than price, and, when combined, were significantly more important than price.

Regarding the management plans factor, the RFP anticipated consideration of four subfactors: (1) communication plan, (2) quality control plan, (3) contractor personnel replacement plan, and (4) standard operating procedures. Of relevance here, the contractor personnel replacement plan subfactor envisioned a plan showing “a proactive response to ensuring all program tasks are continuously supported with qualified Contractor personnel.”

Presumably in an effort to lower its price, The Bowen Group (Bowen) reduced its staffing on the stated assumption that staffing needs would decrease with the pending conclusion of operations in Afghanistan. As a result, Bowen was the low-priced offeror. However, the Source Selection Evaluation Team (SSET) rated Bowen’s personnel replacement plan (as well as its standard operating procedures) as only meeting the agency’s requirements, resulting in an overall rating of “Good” for management plans. More importantly, the Source Selection Authority (SSA), in performing her trade-off analysis, expressly questioned Bowen’s reduced staffing assumption. The SSA disagreed with Bowen’s premise regarding operations in Afghanistan, stating that “the incidence of ill and injured individuals covered under the program is not well-correlated to combat operations, and … issues related to combat operations are not necessarily evident until sometime after combat operations have ended.” The SSA “found that Bowen’s assumption indicated both a lack of commitment to providing proactive attention to continual staffing support, as required by the RFP, and a lack of understanding of the program needs.” She further “questioned whether Bowen would be in a position to ensure that all program tasks would be continually supported with qualified personnel and found that Bowen’s proposal presented risk to the government. This was a ‘significant discriminator’ in the SSA’s view.” In contrast, the SSA noted that the staffing approach by the second low-priced, but higher rated proposal by Special Media Enterprises, LLC (SME) “demonstrates awareness of [the] importance of maintaining continuity of services across the entire Recovery Care Coordinator (RCC) structure.” For this and other reasons, the SSA selected SME for award. After being debriefed, Bowen protested to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Bowen’s protest attacked the SSA’s trade-off analysis, arguing that the SSA’s concerns as to Bowen’s staffing assumption introduced an unstated evaluation criterion, and contradicted the SSET’s evaluation of Bowen’s staffing plan as meeting the RFP requirements. GAO rejected both of these arguments, noting that where, as here, technical factors are more important than price, “source selection officials have broad discretion in determining whether one proposal’s technical superiority is worth its higher price, so long as the agency’s decision is reasonable, consistent with the solicitation’s stated criteria, and adequately documented.”

First, GAO found that the SSA’s consideration of Bowen’s staffing assumptions, and resultant findings as to both a lack of commitment to providing continual staffing support and a lack of understanding of program needs, were “logically related” to the evaluation of Bowen’s proposal under the personnel replacement plan. There therefore was no unstated evaluation criterion, and no basis upon which to question the propriety of the SSA’s consideration of Bowen’s stated staffing assumptions.

Second, GAO stated that the SSA “did not necessarily disagree[] with Bowen’s good rating as assigned by the SSET.” Rather, “the SSA questioned the premise set forth in Bowne’s proposal that staffing needs will likely decline due to the pending conclusion of operations in Afghanistan.” Therefore, there was no contradiction, and, as discussed above, the SSA’s consideration of, and disagreement with, Bowen’s assumptions was proper under the RFP and within the SSA’s discretion, and was well-documented.

In short, Bowen’s reduced staffing assumption clearly hit a wrong note and backfired.

This case exemplifies the importance of fully understanding and appreciating the mindset of the procuring agency, and the need to avoid making assumptions that, while advantaging the offeror in one regard, may come back to bite and cost the offeror in other regards. This is particularly important to keep in mind in solicitations requiring offerors to explain the assumptions underlying their respective proposals. Not only must such assumptions be consistent with the RFP, they also need to be compatible with the agency’s worldview and objectives. This requires the offeror to know and understand its customer and the customer’s goals, which may require going beyond just reviewing the RFP.