This blog has discussed several ways to prepare a winning proposal. These include addressing all aspects that the solicitation requires, adhering to page number limits, carefully writing your proposal, and having your final written proposal reviewed by a third party to ensure that it fully complies with the solicitation. Now comes another suggestion that all contractors should take to heart—organize your written proposal exactly as required by the Request for Proposal (“RFP”) or the Request for Quotation (“RFQ”). In a recent Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) bid protest, Crittenton Consulting Group, Inc., B-422503, July 10, 2024, the protester’s technical proposal was downgraded because the agency was not required to search outside of the place stated in the RFQ for the specific information that could have raised its score.
Crittenton submitted an offer on an RFQ (issued by the General Services Administration, but on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation) to provide records management services. This was done as a Federal Supply Schedule procurement. The solicitation requested technical and price quotations and stated that selection of the awardee would be based on a best value tradeoff. The following were the evaluation scores of the two competitors.
| Crittendon | Other Offeror (TRG) |
Corporate Experience |
Medium Confidence |
High Confidence |
Technical Expertise and Solutions |
Low Confidence |
High Confidence |
Staffing and Management Strategies |
Significance Confidence |
Significant Confidence |
Key Personnel | Significant Confidence | Significant Confidence |
Total Evaluated Price |
$56.9 million |
$65.9 million |
In Crittendon’s technical quotation, the technical evaluation team identified two significant strengths, six strengths, three weaknesses and two deficiencies. The team did not identify any weaknesses, significant weaknesses or deficiencies in the quotation of the other offeror (TRG), and assigned it five significant strengths and nine strengths. The source selection authority conducted a tradeoff and concluded that TRG’s quotation represented the best value to the government.
The important part of the protest was its assertion that the technical team ignored information that was not contained in the sections identified in the RFQ as the proper place to put such information. GAO rejected this contention and denied this protest. The RFQ included specific instructions as to the content of the quotations and identified page limits for each technical factor. In addition the RFQ required vendors to organization their quotations to correspond to the evaluation criteria, and to include sufficient details in their writeups. It was undisputed during the protest that the pages cited by Crittendon demonstrating its experience with a required disposition and conversion process were not included within the 15 page section of its quotation that addressed its corporate experience. This occurred in other areas. GAO noted that “the RFQ’s evaluation scheme did not envision a holistic evaluation comparing and contrasting agency findings across all factors, rather it provided that the agency would evaluate each technical factor individually” and that is exactly what the agency did.
The GAO denied Crittendon’s protest.
Takeaway. If you want to win in a procurement, we recommend that you prepare a proposal that addresses all aspects that the solicitation requires, adheres to page number limits, is carefully and convincingly written, have your final written proposal reviewed by a third party to ensure that it fully complies with the solicitation and finally, is organized exactly as required by the RFP or the RFQ. Although there is no guarantee that your proposal will be a winner, you want a reasonable opportunity to win, and these actions will help provide it to you.
For other helpful suggestions on government contracting, visit:
Richard D. Lieberman’s FAR Consulting & Training at https://www.richarddlieberman.com/, and Mistakes in Government Contracting at https://richarddlieberman.wixsite.com/mistakes.
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