Cyber Security: procurements supported include DHS US-CERT, DOMino, and Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation, Department of State Diplomatic Security Cyber Security Support, Internal Revenue Service CSIRC, DoD USCYBERCOM and Acropolis, intelligence community classified proposals, and overseas cyber operations. Led technical solutions and developed compelling presentations to win massive procurements.
IDIQs: Potomac Advisors managed the complete proposal cycle for an Alliant Small Business contract vehicle submission. This included outlining and building a compliance matrix, drafting text, reviewing and editing, and provided complete graphics production and layout. We also supported the effort to build a joint venture team to enhance the proposal, including working with all partners to include past performance and technical information in the final process. We also validated the proposal for compliance, teaming agreements, labor categories, and pricing data formatting.
Communications: A complete team of Potomac Advisors experts delivered complete proposal support including business development, proposal management, outlining, writing, editing, graphics, and administration. The team operated in support of a five-company team pursing a program offered jointly by the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Treasury. Our leadership of the proposal effort included internal business case development to augment the client’s resources, successful production of the Phase I response (downselected to Phase II), creation of a team of twenty writers, artists, managers, and support staff, and management of formal reviews. We also provided legislative support, technical expertise for data mining and artificial intelligence routines in support of the cost volume, and creation of the Performance Work Statement to the Government’s specifications.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC). In this $5 billion IDIQ procurement, Potomac Advisors supported a major integrator in both its prime and subcontractor bids. We provided a Black Hat team member who had worked on many healthcare proposals for competitors and was then asked to support the proposal effort. We provided the Task Order manager for the Infrastructure bid. Despite a short turn around time and proposing to do work that was outside of the client’s experience at CDC, we quickly put together a winning proposal.
We also provided a proposal manager to support the bid for the Management Consulting task of the CIMS project. Our resource created a data call for all team members, organized a team of six writers, arranged and conducted kickoff, Pink, and Red Team efforts, and wrote significant portions of the response. Our proposal manager also rewrote past performance and corporate experience sections and worked with the capture manager to complete sections of the proposal made complicated by the change in the corporate status of the bidding entity. Red Team reviewers cited the proposal team for creating a compelling story.
Transportation: Potomac Advisors managed the technical, management, and past performance volumes for a small business-led team of five companies under the COMMITS vehicle to provide a DOT agency with complete infrastructure, service desk, and technology migration support. We developed the outline, derived elements of the solution from the team’s technical experts, created and validated the requirements matrix, and presented a winning solution.
Task Orders: Supported an IT leader with proposal support on the BPA phase for a long-term technical services contract for software support and development. Potomac Advisors staff led rewrites of the Technical and Past Performance volumes to gain one of three full and open slots on the BPA. Once awarded, the client asked us to lead the RFI and RFQ processes, where we delivered 57 responses over five weeks to compete for over $685 million of work. The project manager cited our team for performance and commitment above and beyond expectations.
Defense: Potomac Advisors was hired to manage and develop an extensive response to a $200 million IDIQ for small businesses to support the U.S. Army Information and Security Command (INSCOM) with omnibus technical services. We provided a proposal manager, technical writers, resume writers, graphic artist and a technical editor to support a small business attempting their first major effort as a prime contractor, leading a team of 9 companies, including two large businesses. We created past performance stories, trained client and partner staff on proposal writing, conducted Pink and Red Team reviews, implemented version control for document development, and trained all personnel on a version control system.
Contingency Operations: CSTC-A Afghan Ministry of Defense Support Program. Potomac Advisors provided a proposal manager, two volume leaders, a technical writer, and an HR subject matter expert to support a proposal involving over 300 mentors, trainers, and advisors to the Combined Forces in Afghanistan to support training and rebuilding the postwar nation’s defense ministry. We coordinated and analyzed over 1,000 resumes to identify 324 candidates; we also built the management and technical volumes, deriving a proposal strategy based on our client’s past performance and operational strengths. In a short turnaround, must win situation, we provided a blue technical response and delivered a winning bid on time and on budget.
Performance Assessments: A large IT integrator with $1 billion of annual sales in DoD and related work needed to assess its performance on all large contracts. Reacting to the government’s commitment to new quality standards, the client saw internal assessments as a valuable tool for anticipating performance issues and responding rapidly to emerging issues.The client needed help with the creation of the internal survey, the procedures for conducting the survey, and the presentation and analysis of gathered data.
Listening to the client, we drafted a survey instrument to achieve project goals, and a set of instructions to guide interviewers through the process. The process required the cooperation of client operations and business development staff to prepare their customers to respond to the survey request. We created material to support the requests and gave immediate feedback to validate the process.
John O’Reilly, a founder of Potomac Advisors, managed a team of interviewers, training them and tracking results in close coordination with the client project manager. We balanced the length of the survey and impact on the representative of the customer with the value of results. Urgent issues required immediate elevation to client executives, while business requirements forced rapid adjustment of schedules.
Over the first year, we made modifications to the survey instrument and streamlined the process to reduce paperwork. By Year 2, we started re-interviewing customers to create a time series of responses, and tracking metrics for survey completion and amount of feedback. The client expanded the program in each of the first four years to include new business lines.
By Year 4, we successfully coordinated transition of project management to in-house staff, while maintaining independent interviewers to encourage frank discussions. This enabled the client to reduce its management expense and maintain access to our expertise as needed.
The program has excellent visibility within the company and has proven to be exceptionally useful not only in achieving the desired goals of improving the scores of Government-conducted assessment, but also in identifying new opportunities, areas for new business development, and in several cases, preventing a small personnel or operations problem from impacting the company’s success in meeting Government customer expectations. Senior business development staff are able to use the aggregate results to demonstrate success in ongoing work, and equally important, give concrete evidence of the company’s commitment to transparent, no-excuses quality services to its most valued customers.