Many that have been extraordinarily successful on GSA OASIS will tell you that strategic teaming was the cornerstone to success. For the first phase (years 1-5) of OASIS, there were very few contract holders in each pool. Capturing incumbents who did not have access as a prime was a winning strategy. Incumbents were often caught off guard that their work was moving to OASIS and would quickly pivot to find a prime who seemed somewhat capable of priming the work.
For the 2nd phase (years 6-10), the new OASIS contract holders from the on-ramp tried to replicate success from their predecessors. Incumbent capture was a strategic approach to win, but OASIS prime contract holders had to do more corporate selling to convince the incumbent, “Why Us”.
How do you stand out from the crowd? Why should an incumbent choose you over the other prime contract holders? The same questions you try to answer in a proposal submission are the same selling points you want to communicate in convincing an incumbent to join your team.
With the increased number of apparent awardees and the vision of a continuous on-ramp once initial awards are processed, strategic selling points are going to be an even more important component to winning. Realistically, you’re not going to be #1 in all areas. But take the areas where you have been rated ‘highly confident’ in proposal evaluations and strengthen those to be the BEST! For instance:
- Technical volume: What are our technical qualifications. How can we improve to be better?
- Transition volume: What is our process. How can we be better?
- Recruiting/Retention: Why are we so successful? How can we leverage our successes?
- CPARS: Why do we continue to receive exceptionals? How can we document and create best practices?
- Business / Management Volume: Why are we highly rated for understanding the customer’s problem and proposing a solution that meets ALL the requirements? How can we document and create a best practice?
In essence, feedback is key! If you win or lose a contract, requesting a de-brief will help you see how you are rated to determine your strengths that you can build upon and your weaknesses where you can improve. You need to submit a lot of proposals to aggregate the data you need to make analytical conclusions.
Mild Red LLC has a 90-day service offering for vendors new to the OASIS ecosystem. We also have a bundled opportunity with ArtForm Business Solutions to help you highlight your strengths and how to stand out from the crowd. Reach out to Katie Helwig or Janet Waring for more information.