Capture Management: 5 Mistakes You Don’t Know You’re Making
These mistakes often go unnoticed, and companies don’t even realize they’re making them. Below are five questions to help you identify and sidestep these common pitfalls. Is your capture management process repeatable? Is your capture management process repeatable? When a forecasted opportunity begins to pick up momentum, is there a specific process that is initiated? If so, this process should have clearly defined roles for all of the team members throughout every step of the process. With a repeatable process, leadership and team members have the ability to be more strategic in their decision-making. The repeatability of the process enables an organization to exercise continuous process improvement. Do you manage your business with reactive decisions? Do you manage your business with reactive decisions? Reactive decisions rarely provide value for a business. They’re made in an instant, based on emotions rather than deliberate thought, and do not reflect strategic business processes. Although not all business scenarios can be planned for, spending time in planning and strategy development sessions, will enable you to anticipate the likelihood of scenarios, and identify processes to address them appropriately. read the article Are your revenue projects instantly available? Are your revenue projects instantly available? Do you and your teammates have real-time access to existing projects? Using information from current business to drive new business isn’t a fresh idea. Knowledge and understanding of your existing projects – including revenue generated, type of services being performed, level of expertise of project personnel, and status of the project – is all useful intelligence related to your internal capabilities. Utilize this in the capture process to drive business towards your company. These are your assets! Do your capture executives consistently update your current system? Do your capture executives consistently update your current system? Do your capture executives share information about competition, teammates, and government trends? Do your capture executives share information about competition, teammates, and government trends? Executives should be sharing this information on a regular basis with team members. A platform should exist within your company that enables knowledge share on an accessible basis. The better the information, the more strategic your business decisions can be – and advantage to everyone. BIT Solutions LLC See Full Bio
Why Black Hat Review Processes Work
There are many methodologies for implementing a Black Hat review process, but the key to making it work is obtaining quality data and seeing the task through to its finish. After you know plenty about what you’re up against, you need to create an actionable plan that ensures you win the bid. Understanding the Competition and Your Weaknesses To write a winning proposal, you must understand how your competition operates. During a Black Hat review process, an internal team and external consultants emulate the competition and develop their strategies, ghost their weaknesses and downplay your strengths. This exercise, typically performed by Black Hat review teams, is specifically designed for performing SWOT analysis, which reviews strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This Black Hat review process takes into account the competition’s past performance, how it reacts to client problems, the abilities of its top capture personnel and other key differentiators — not just how they pitch themselves. Creating Action Items and Writing the Bid Capture management personnel know that if you don’t translate what you learn into a concrete strategy, a Black Hat review is simply an academic exercise. Action items should be discussed and built after the process has concluded, when all team members have a better understanding of the competition — and of your own company. From such an exercise, you visualize your competitor’s strategies and figure out how to outdo the competition in a government contract bid. In this sense, no bid should ever be developed in isolation of your competitor. Additionally, the Black Hat process should make establishing price points, downplaying competitor strengths and highlighting your advantages easier. Making the Most of Black Hat Review Process In order to have the best information about your competitor on hand, you must obtain intelligence and specific data throughout the entire capture process. Additionally, the team working the Black Hat review should be very familiar with the competitor; ideally, you’ll have someone who has worked for that firm in the past. If you don’t have anyone with that kind of inside knowledge, bringing in outside consultants is a great option. Lastly, the Black Hat review process leads to a White Hat review process: During this exercise, your team analyzes how a competitor targets your capabilities and addresses your solutions. After all, your competition wants to win that government contract just as badly as you do. your he said your As with any technique, it’s useless if you don’t establish a formal methodology for implementing it. Plan thoroughly before you start the process. BIT Solutions LLC See Full Bio
Can a CRM Improve My Capture Management?
A government contract can be an incredible revenue stream; however, actually landing the deal can be a long and arduous process. That’s where customer relationship management (CRM) software can help. CRM technology is useful in managing and analyzing customer interactions. In the era of “the customer experience”, it’s increasingly vital to solve your client’s needs quickly and effectively. As a contractor, the government is your client. If you are trying to improve your team’s capture management, a CRM can certainly benefit your company. Here’s how… CRM Unifies the Entire Process With CRM software, you can view the entire capture management process in one clear interface. From creating a strategy and understanding your potential customer to analyzing your competition and constructing an ideal team, the right CRM software makes managing the process simple. Because CRM collects all relevant information in one place, the capture management process is also more efficient — which makes landing that government contract a likely possibility. CRM software such as CaptureExec can help shape the success of every opportunity you manage by organizing the process, and motivating team members to usher the opportunity to a win. CRM Lets You Know What Questions to Ask (and When to Ask Them) One of the primary benefits of an exceptional CRM is that it supports your processes. You can better see the big questions you should ask during each step of the capture process via a centralized dashboard. And you’ll be in much better shape to respond to answers. For example, during the pursuit stage and after examining the needs of the client, you will know that it’s time to ask this question: “What type of solution are you searching for?” When the government agency answers, you will be ready to play up your capabilities and resources and cite past performance as evidence. CRM Helps Manage the Entire Team It can takes years to complete a successful capture. And, there are typically many capture team members involved. This makes it difficult for leaders to oversee the process from start to finish. But CRM clarifies roles and responsibilities, as well as communication pipelines, to help managers stay organized and on target. Key players, such as the executive, delivery manager and pricing manager, can move tasks and opportunities smoothly within CRM, using the software’s greatest benefit–transparency– so members of the team can see how their work contributes to the capture management process. CRM Organizes All the Documents You Collect CRM improves company efficiency and customer service quality. Being able to seamlessly organize all the documents you collect throughout the capture process not only keeps everything at your fingertips, but also helps your team know what data is important and determine how to correctly measure progress. In the end, this knowledge enables capture management teams to choose the best strategy for moving forward. CRM’s automation of manual tasks is an added benefit that increases operational efficiency. CRM Keeps Executives Updated Executives need real-time information about the capture process so they can make educated, accurate decisions. CRM is the technology that can provide that. Because the executive team is constantly kept up-to-date, leaders have the correct information for grading each stage of the capture, implementing new strategies, and communicating with government clients. This information can also help decision makers determine whether or not to bring on a capture management consultant. Timely updates help execs know when it’s time to pursue a new opportunity or abandon an old one. Advanced CRM software, provides insight into win percentages, which undoubtedly helps with allocation of resources. Going Forward with CRM Not all CRMs are suitable for every business. You need to find a software solution that fits your company’s needs. You must implement the CRM correctly if you want to put yourself in the best position to land government contracts and exceed customer expectations. find out BIT Solutions LLC See Full Bio
Capture Management Process: Top 4 Steps Crucial to Success
explanation It’s indisputable that the capture management process is long, multi-faceted and complicated. As discussed in our last blog – even preparation for a capture should begin years in advance. But sometimes it seems that there are not enough hours in the day, week or month to get all necessary steps accomplished. Sometimes it does become necessary to cut some corners and prioritize. And to prioritize effectively, you must understand exactly which steps of capture management are completely crucial to success: Understanding Your Customer’s Requirements Understanding the requirements of your customers can be accomplished in a few different ways. However it is imperative that you recognize that none are mutually exclusive; in fact, you should do all in your power to touch on each of the following points so that you have the most thorough understanding of exactly what your customers are looking for. (more…) BIT Solutions LLC See Full Bio
What Should You Look for in a Capture Management Software?
go url Recently I have seen many different people make comments about how software technology is not very helpful within the worlds of capture management and procurement. And while that may help to explain why so many contractors still rely on Excel spreadsheets and emails for NDA’s, TA’s and SubK’s, avoiding government-focused technological solutions is only committing a disservice to yourself. At a time where there are so many capture management software and procurement software and CRM solutions on the market – all of them claiming to be your ideal solution – you may want to try one out. Just be sure you do your research first. Your capture management process can be made more efficient, more collaborative, and more analytical if you have the right software. You can actively track the involvement of an entire team, instead of just utilizing a piecemeal bi-weekly conversational strategy. You can focus more on the holistic view of your Company/Division’s success, instead of getting bogged down in the day-to-day operational details. In essence, these tools will allow you the possibility to manage your company’s efficiency and effectiveness. The software you look for should have the following features as a minimum requirement: User Flexibility Look for a solution that allows you to define all fields, tables and reports with no limitations; a system that allows for easy growth and change as your company expands and changes size and offerings without any customized programming or paying additional fees for additional features – all features should come included with your software and any new features should be free. This will allow your team to work, report and understand more effectively as the system flexes around their day-to-day activities. Be certain that your system can help you run your business better by providing you with the business information you need on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Proactive Intelligence Most software used for managing Captures are incredibly basic – allowing users to record only basic Name, Address & Serial number type CRM information. What you really need is a software solution that does more for you and your Capture Executives. Look for software that is instructional, intelligent, and offers quick ways to answer productivity questions – one that can be used as a true capture management enablement solution, and not just a reporting solution. Some capture management systems do just that; look for solutions that can actually help your capture executive determine what to ask the government before they actually meet. Not only will this simplify the lives of your Capture Executives, but this feature ensures that their meetings with potential customers are productive and efficient. Even more importantly, this creates a repeatable sales process (ISO-like), so every Capture Executive that you hire follows exactly the same process and asks the same questions during the information gather process. Collaborative Capabilities (Integration) Unless your capture management team works together at all times, chances are high that they’re going to be inputting information – and making contributing steps – separately. Therefore your capture management software should reflect that separation. Be sure that your solution allows your management team a view of all potential opportunities and progress that is made on each opportunity over time – regardless of who contributes individually. You work, progress and excel as a group – not only should your solution allow you to view your progress collectively, but it should facilitate that togetherness by allowing your employees to work together; managing, rating and assigning teammates, even reminding everyone about due dates and important requirements for your team. Automated Functionality During the capture process, many procedures and management meetings are prepared for by manually creating “Gate Review” documents, which takes a lot of the Capture Executive’s time away from being in the field. If all the data is collected on a regular basis and entered in to the system, you should find a system that provides a “One button” solution to update and report to management on each capture being worked. Integration to the Contracts/Procurement team should be an essential part of a good software system. How many times have you requested NDA’s for a meeting and they have been missed or late? A fully automated & integrated system provides a seamless way for Capture Executives and Contracts teams to easily request and fulfill the contracting items such as NDA’s, TA’s & SubK’s. Automated integration to sites like FedBizOps is a great time saver as you can simply search, find and update a Capture system right from these types of data gathering sites. A feature for simple import capabilities helps this process tremendously, but a fully integrated feature is even better. An Executive Focus As an executive, you’re looking for different information to run your Company or Division than the information that your Capture Management team needs. And while that’s expected, you’d be surprised how many capture management solutions offer only information for the sales person. Look for a solution that has been developed from the Executive Management standpoint and offers an easy way to see, manage and update all information being collected by the sales team on a daily basis. There is nothing worse than having your sales team collect information, then tell you what they have collected – where’s the value in that process? You want to already have that information available to you, and be able to challenge the sales team on what deals are best for the company to bid and why. While your capture management team may want to hone in on granular information, that may not benefit you. Your time, rather, should be spend on the larger scale – looking at the costs of capture, your competition, financial projections and the progress that all your sales team are making on each deal. In Conclusion Just be sure that the solution you choose offers flexibility, proactive intelligence, collaborative capabilities, repeatable processes, and an executive focus – and you’ll be on your way to an improved capture management process which saves your company
Selling to the Government: Which Proposals Are Worth Your B&P?
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What Is a “Power Map” and How Do I Use One?
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How to Find the Right Government Contract Opportunities
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What Do You Do When Your Capture Executive (Capture Manager) Leaves?
Second only to projecting sales, your capture management tool of choice is a key indicator of your capture management team’s performance and is also what keeps accumulated data about each prospect in one place. Its active monitoring begins the day your Capture Executive (also known as a Capture Manager or Capture Executive Manager) starts work. At that moment you with understand that your capture management team will change over time, and thus you may be faced with extreme difficulties when your Capture Executive leaves for other opportunities. Second only to projecting sales, your capture management tool of choice is a key indicator of your capture management team’s performance and is also what keeps accumulated data about each prospect in one place. Its active monitoring begins the day your Capture Executive (also known as a Capture Manager or Capture Executive Manager) starts work. At that moment you with understand that your capture management team will change over time, and thus you may be faced with extreme difficulties when your Capture Executive leaves for other opportunities. The Importance of Your Capture Executive Most experienced Capture Executive Managers gather the following types of data throughout the capture managment: Most experienced Capture Executive Managers gather the following types of data throughout the capture managment: Answers to any and all questions they ask the Government Answers to any and all questions they ask the Government Answers to any and all questions they ask the Government Information collected from competitors and teammates Information collected from competitors and teammates Information collected from competitors and teammates Industry day topics and data Industry day topics and data Industry day topics and data Information from countless emails, phone calls, meetings and gatherings Information from countless emails, phone calls, meetings and gatherings Information from countless emails, phone calls, meetings and gatherings During all this time, they keep most all their questions, answers, information they gather in their head, on their mobile phones, or in emails and personal documents they store on their computers. Very little ever gets put in a place where the next Capture Manager can easily access and bring themselves up to speed on the status of the capture management process. So, the time to develop a succession plan is long before they leave. During all this time, they keep most all their questions, answers, information they gather in their head, on their mobile phones, or in emails and personal documents they store on their computers. Very little ever gets put in a place where the next Capture Manager can easily access and bring themselves up to speed on the status of the capture management process. So, the time to develop a succession plan is long before they leave. next How Can You Prepare for Your Capture Manager Leaving? How Can You Prepare for Your Capture Manager Leaving? There are many ways to anticipate a vacancy that could save you from business intelligence gaps: Performance agreements based on the firm’s strategic goals Performance agreements based on the firm’s strategic goals Performance agreements based on the firm’s strategic goals Weekly team meetings to discuss contacts and intelligence gathered during the week website here Weekly team meetings to discuss contacts and intelligence gathered during the week Weekly team meetings to discuss contacts and intelligence gathered during the week Maintaining reference contacts through support and general contact follow-up Maintaining reference contacts through support and general contact follow-up Maintaining reference contacts through support and general contact follow-up Documenting all activities in your CRM to retain information gathered. Documenting all activities in your CRM to retain information gathered. Documenting all activities in your CRM to retain information gathered. But, as your company grows, it becomes impossible for a manager to retain all of the information that their Capture Executives’ have gathered for all of their potential opportunities. The only real solution is to have a capture management system that retains that information for you – including all management tools that measure and ensure that your capture management team is updating the system on a regular basis with the information required. But, as your company grows, it becomes impossible for a manager to retain all of the information that their Capture Executives’ have gathered for all of their potential opportunities. The only real solution is to have a capture management system that retains that information for you – including all management tools that measure and ensure that your capture management team is updating the system on a regular basis with the information required. retains that information for you Benefits of a Capture Management System Benefits of a Capture Management System By actively managing these activities, you avoid the all too common situtation of your Capture Manager giving notice, and your only option is to meet with that person and discuss every single client — whether existing, active deals, qualified potential, potential, and yes, even fails. By actively managing these activities, you avoid the all too common situtation of your Capture Manager giving notice, and your only option is to meet with that person and discuss every single client — whether existing, active deals, qualified potential, potential, and yes, even fails. process now without fail; Once Your Capture Executive Manager Leaves Once Your Capture Executive Manager Leaves Regardless of your current business capture management process, the first step when your capture executive manager leaves — if not before—is to contact each client to provide updated contact information and assurances of a seamless transition. Regardless of your current business capture management process, the first step when your capture executive manager leaves — if not before—is to contact each client to provide updated contact information and assurances of a seamless transition. Whether you use a spreadsheet tool or a specific capture management software to monitor progress and collect information, the critical point is to do it. Without a process in place to anticipate the loss of a valuable Capture Executive’s knowledge, your forecast will become vulnerable. Businesses that manage a formal capture documentation process that anticipates intelligence
Have You Outgrown Microsoft Excel as a Sales Management Tool?
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The 5 Essential Habits of Highly Effective Capture Executives
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5 Red Flags to Look for in a Capture Management Consultant
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Greatest Hits: Top Government Sales Insights for Your Business
find more info Capturing and winning government contracts is a way to ensure a stable source of income for years to come. During lean economic times, government contracts can help keep the doors open, and during boom times, these contracts can fund expansion. But what do you need to know to make sure your government sales processes are top notch? What can you do to make sure you win your bids, and what should you do if you lose? Read on to learn more. (more…) BIT Solutions LLC See Full Bio
Greatest Hits: What You Need to Know About the Black Hat Review Process
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Can an Automated Capture Solution Improve My Capture Management?
In today’s hyper-competitive, 24/7 global economy, automated capture solutions can help your business adopt and maintain a competitive edge by creating repeatable processes, eliminating inefficiencies, building a solid customer data bank and closely tracking sales metrics within your organization. full article In today’s hyper-competitive, 24/7 global economy, automated capture solutions can help your business adopt and maintain a competitive edge by creating repeatable processes, eliminating inefficiencies, building a solid customer data bank and closely tracking sales metrics within your organization. In today’s hyper-competitive, 24/7 global economy, automated capture solutions can help your business adopt and maintain a competitive edge by creating repeatable processes, eliminating inefficiencies, building a solid customer data bank and closely tracking sales metrics within your organization. In today’s hyper-competitive, 24/7 global economy, automated capture solutions can help your business adopt and maintain a competitive edge by creating repeatable processes, eliminating inefficiencies, building a solid customer data bank and closely tracking sales metrics within your organization. In today’s hyper-competitive, 24/7 global economy, automated capture solutions can help your business adopt and maintain a competitive edge by creating repeatable processes, eliminating inefficiencies, building a solid customer data bank and closely tracking sales metrics within your organization. In today’s hyper-competitive, 24/7 global economy, automated capture solutions can help your business adopt and maintain a competitive edge by creating repeatable processes, eliminating inefficiencies, building a solid customer data bank and closely tracking sales metrics within your organization. In today’s hyper-competitive, 24/7 global economy, automated capture solutions can help your business adopt and maintain a competitive edge by creating repeatable processes, eliminating inefficiencies, building a solid customer data bank and closely tracking sales metrics within your organization. In today’s hyper-competitive, 24/7 global economy, automated capture solutions can help your business adopt and maintain a competitive edge by creating repeatable processes, eliminating inefficiencies, building a solid customer data bank and closely tracking sales metrics within your organization. (more…) BIT Solutions LLC See Full Bio