APMP Study Guide Acknowledgments

APMP Foundation Study Guide

• The APMP Body of Knowledge is the reference for the APMP Foundation Certification Exam
• The guide is based on the APMP Body of Knowledge, which documents the best practices for proposal development and related business development topics

Understand Business Development

• The business development lifecycle is about winning business and is based on best practices
• A clear business development process can help organizations identify opportunities and win bids in a repeatable and sustainable way
• Introduction to the business development lifecycle includes understanding the eight phases of the lifecycle:
  • Market identification
  • Accounting planning and positioning
  • Opportunity assessment (identification and qualification)
  • And five more phases

Phases in the Business Development Lifecycle

• The eight phases of the business development lifecycle include:
  • Market identification
    • Identifying markets to pursue and penetrate
    • Assessing market risk and investment tolerance
  • Accounting planning and positioning
    • Long-term positioning with potential customers
    • Adjusting account plans as opportunities progress
  • Opportunity assessment (identification and qualification)
    • Identifying sales opportunities through various channels
    • Qualifying opportunities and making a preliminary bid/no-bid decision
  • Five more phases

Market Identification

• Market risk assessment is a valuable tool for organizations to assess their risk and investment tolerance
• Market risk is highest for opportunities with new customers and new products
• The market identification stage helps organizations ensure that they spend marketing budgets and resources on the most likely targets for profitable business opportunities

Accounting Planning and Positioning

• Account planning involves long-term positioning with a potential customer

• An account plan consists of historical account information, buying history, key customer personnel, and strategies for penetrating or growing an account

• An account plan often feeds into an opportunity plan when specific opportunities are qualified### The Business Development Lifecycle

• The business development lifecycle consists of eight phases: opportunity identification, opportunity assessment, opportunity planning, proposal planning, proposal development, negotiation and post-submittal activity, delivery and ongoing customer relationships, and common pitfalls and misconceptions.

• Qualifying opportunities is a key step to improving overall win rates.

• Companies that do not adequately qualify opportunities often overspend marketing and sales budgets and pursue too many opportunities that they have a low probability of winning.

Opportunity Assessment

• Questions to consider at the opportunity assessment phase include:
  • Is there an incumbent on this opportunity?
  • What is the incumbent's performance?
  • Who are known competitors?
  • Are there possible unknown competitors?
  • Can we win?
  • Can we deliver profitably?
  • Do we need to team with another organization?
  • What will it cost us to bid?
  • Will bidding this opportunity better position us for future opportunities?
  • Does this opportunity fit within our strategic plan and vision?

Opportunity Planning

• Opportunity planning starts early in the lifecycle and continues through proposal submission.
• Critical aspects of opportunity planning include:
  • Knowledge of portfolio management and the 4Cs: customer, competition, cost, and company and solution.
  • Understanding the customer's situation, needs, hot buttons, issues, and biases.
  • Identifying whether there is an incumbent, known competitors, or potential unknown competitors.
  • Determining whether there is a competitive advantage or disadvantage in pursuing the opportunity.

Proposal Planning

• Proposal planning activities are critical to repeat success in business development.
• The five proposal planning activities are:
  • Migrating data from the opportunity plan to a proposal plan or to proposal planning tools.
  • Extending the opportunity strategy into the proposal strategy.
  • Refining the solution and price-to-win.
  • Engaging the right staff for the proposal team and securing the right executive support.
  • Holding a proposal kickoff meeting to share planning activities with the proposal team.

Proposal Development

• Proposal development kicks into high gear as the opportunity matures and a formal bid request is released.
• At this stage, bid planning activities, including changes to the solution, strategy, teaming partners, proposal organization, proposal schedule, and workshare, should stop.
• Organizations should use compliance tracking tools, such as compliance checklists, response matrices, and writers' assignments, to ensure that they are meeting the requirements of the bid request.

Negotiation and Post-Submittal Activity

• Submittal of a proposal does not signal the end of the business development lifecycle.
• An organization's strategy during this phase should be to respond fully to customer questions and concerns and to reinforce the customer's trust in its solution and organization.

Delivery and Ongoing Customer Relationships

• Effective business development activities continue throughout the solution delivery phase.
• Winning the contract is an opportunity to prove value and position your organization for additional opportunities.
• Executing effectively on a contract is the best way to position for future business with an account or client organization.

Common Pitfalls and Misconceptions

• Some organizations mistakenly think that a repeatable business development process is not necessary.
• Ad hoc business development activities are occasionally successful, but they are mostly hit and miss.
• Time and again, tailoring best practices and turning them into a repeatable process has proven effective.

Compliance and Responsiveness

• A winning proposal is both compliant and responsive.
• Compliance is the act of meeting stated customer requirements.
• Responsiveness goes beyond compliance and addresses customer goals, underlying concerns, and key customer issues and values that might not be spelled out in the solicitation.
• Examples of compliance include structuring the proposal per the customer's instructions, remaining within the page limits, and adhering to formatting guidelines.
• Examples of responsiveness include understanding the customer's stated and implied needs, describing the benefits the customer will gain from the solution, and editing the writing to speak the customer's language.

Best Practices

• Begin to cultivate responsiveness long before RFP release.
• Thoroughly review and clearly understand the customer's bid request.
• Prepare a comprehensive compliance matrix for every bid request.
• Submit a response matrix with the proposal.
• Maintain a customer focus.### Focus on the Customer
• A winning proposal must be both compliant and responsive to the customer's underlying issues.
• Compliance and responsiveness are two different but equally crucial elements in a proposal.

Understanding Customer Needs

• Customer analysis is understanding the customer's needs, both spoken and unspoken.
• It involves understanding the skills the customer looks for in contractors to meet their needs.
• Good customer intelligence takes place over months and years.
• Best sources of customer intelligence data include:
  • Direct information from customer contacts
  • Annual reports
  • Policy documents
  • Industry publications
  • Historical data on trends
  • Budget documents that indicate future priorities
  • Existing contracts and performance data

Competitive Intelligence

• Competitive intelligence is objectively understanding the strengths, weaknesses, and strategies of companies competing for business.
• It involves gathering research from publicly available sources to understand the competitive forces and market dynamics.
• Best practices for competitive intelligence include:
  • Understanding the importance of customer and competitive intelligence
  • Fostering information sharing among team members
  • Leveraging public sources of data
  • Using a bidder comparison matrix to identify key competitors' strengths and weaknesses

Customer Analysis and Competitive Intelligence

• Customer analysis and competitive intelligence work together to drive the strategy and approach.
• Application of customer analysis and competitive intelligence helps focus opportunity planning and proposal writing.
• It helps develop a thorough, well-planned strategy for winning the opportunity.

Executive Summaries

• The executive summary is a concise, informational, and persuasive piece of writing that convinces the customer that your offer is superior.
• It should be written in a customer-focused tone and style, avoiding technical content.
• Best practices for executive summaries include:
  • Keeping it customer-focused
  • Demonstrating understanding of the customer's business issue and vision
  • Articulating understanding of the customer's hot buttons
  • Confirming that the solution satisfies each hot-button issue from the customer's perspective
  • Focusing on benefits to the customer, not the underlying products or services