We have just finished the final quarter of the federal fiscal year, during which more than 40% of the federal budget (or $200 billion) was spent with contractors, according to a recent Deltek report. In order to win these contracts, a contractor generally answers a Request for Proposal (RFP) or other contract announcement. Competition is stiff, and the RFP response process is time-consuming and costly.
After investing the time, money and energy in responding to a bid and losing, if a businessperson could sit down face-to-face with decision-makers to find out what went wrong and why his RFP response did not make the cut, would that not be a valuable meeting? If one could meet the decision-makers face to face and have open discussion and learn how to improve the next bid, would that be a worthwhile use of time?
The federal market offers this meeting process; it is called a debriefing.
The Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR 15.505) stipulate that a contractor may request a debriefing either before or after the contract award. There are specific requirements and deadlines one must follow, and the government representatives have specific limits as to what they can and cannot discuss.
Read the whole article by TargetGov President Gloria Larkin here.
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