Hope Is Not A Winning Pricing Strategy - But It Is Still Used Widely (08-21-13)

For any given opportunity CAI/SISCo's Price To Win(PTW)and Pricing Strategy Tune-Up studies are designed to provide capture professionals with their 2 most important inputs:

• 1. the price that will most likely be needed to win; and,
• 2. how that winning price can best be profitably developed.

CAI/SISCo is the most experienced firm there is that can provide both of these crucial inputs along with copious supporting rationale - over 1,500 major opportunities supported to date with an aggregate award value in excess of $1T. Moreover, we have worked with just about every major government contractor and all branches of government. In so doing we have built an experienced and skilled staff that, over the years, has:

• developed and documented a PTW framework (our PTW book entitled Hope Is Not A Winning Strategy... But Price To Win Is! is available on Amazon as are the books in our Roadmap To BD Success series) that is now used by scores of consultants and contractors;
• trained well over 5,000 business developers in how to do PTW studies, strategic pricing, capture and other BD topics;
• maintained a database of our contacts with every person who has shown up at Industry Days, on interested parties lists, or, at bidders' conferences since 1995 - our database is now 185,000 strong;
• developed a comprehensive and customizable opportunity pricing model and price gaming model that is rapidly adaptable to opportunities of all types, sizes, scopes and durations;
• compiled a comprehensive array of estimation tools, models and subscriptions that help make what we do doable; and
• created a comprehensive catalog of pricing strategies that underpin our pricing strategy tune-up and strategic pricing activities.

In 1975, when CAI/SISCo started offering a service that is now widely known as PTW, it was a very hard sell. In those days most competitive bids were won less on price and more on non-cost issues such as solution, team, and past performance.

"Well, haven't times changed?" Now, in the time of LPTA, all of those non-cost attributes, while still needed, are definitely subservient to price.

Also, consider this. Today significant competitive opportunities are drawing "n" bid teams, where "n" is often in double digits. Inevitably, there will only be one winner and "n"-1 losers. Prudent bidders, therefore, are very familiar with how PTW and/or strategic pricing studies conducted by one of our experienced teams can significantly improve the probability of a win.

There is no magic, just the hard work involved in developing that timely, independently-derived, well-reasoned, competition-focused hand against which your capture professionals can clap their view of the requirements, the competition, levels of effort, gaming opportunities, and the pricing strategies needed to identify and profitably reach the price to win the job. Without rigorous processes, experienced practitioners, world-class information and modeling assets, all you are likely to end up with is a price to bid the job and a place among th "n"-1 losers.

Please contact CAI/SISCo today to help juice your firm's ability to be a winner.

Good luck and happy hunting!