CMP Proposal Strategy & Competitive Analysis 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which competitive intelligence source is MOST reliable for understanding a competitor's labor rate structure?
- Social media posts from the competitor's employees
- Publicly filed Service Contract Act wage determinations and GSA schedule rates (Correct answer)
- News articles about the competitor's recent contract awards
- Conversations with former competitor employees at industry conferences
Correct answer: Publicly filed Service Contract Act wage determinations and GSA schedule rates
GSA schedule labor rates and SCA wage determinations are public, verified, and directly comparable to your own rate structure.
Question 2: When developing a competitive analysis matrix, which dimension is LEAST useful for evaluating proposal positioning?
- Technical approach alignment with evaluation criteria
- Competitor's founding date and corporate history (Correct answer)
- Past performance relevance and recency
- Price competitiveness and overhead rates
Correct answer: Competitor's founding date and corporate history
A competitor's founding date rarely correlates with proposal quality, win probability, or discriminator strength.
Question 3: What is the term for a proposal narrative technique that presents your solution features followed immediately by the benefit to the customer?
- Feature-Advantage-Benefit (FAB) (Correct answer)
- Problem-Agitate-Solution (PAS)
- Situation-Task-Action-Result (STAR)
- Issue-Impact-Insight-Initiative (4I)
Correct answer: Feature-Advantage-Benefit (FAB)
Feature-Advantage-Benefit chains describe WHAT you offer, WHY it is better, and HOW it benefits the customer — a core proposal writing technique.
Question 4: In the context of competitive positioning, what does 'shaping the requirement' mean?
- Rewriting the RFP after release to match your capabilities
- Engaging the customer pre-RFP to influence requirements in your favor (Correct answer)
- Selecting only the RFP sections you choose to respond to
- Adjusting your cost model to match the SOW requirements
Correct answer: Engaging the customer pre-RFP to influence requirements in your favor
Shaping involves pre-RFP customer engagement to introduce requirements, evaluation criteria, or contract terms that align with your unique capabilities.
Question 5: A 'Red Team' review is BEST described as which type of evaluation?
- A management review of budget and schedule
- An independent evaluation scoring the proposal against evaluation criteria (Correct answer)
- A technical review by subject matter experts
- A final quality check by the proposal manager
Correct answer: An independent evaluation scoring the proposal against evaluation criteria
The Red Team independently evaluates the proposal from the evaluator's perspective, scoring it against stated criteria to identify weaknesses before submission.
Question 6: Which statement BEST describes a 'discriminator' in proposal strategy?
- Any feature that distinguishes your proposal from a generic response
- A capability or attribute that is unique to you AND valued by the customer (Correct answer)
- A lower price point compared to the competitive range
- A past performance example with the same agency
Correct answer: A capability or attribute that is unique to you AND valued by the customer
A true discriminator must satisfy two conditions: it must be unique to your team AND directly address a customer hot button — uniqueness alone is insufficient.
Question 7: What is the primary goal of conducting a 'lessons learned' debrief after a proposal loss?
- To assign accountability for the loss to specific team members
- To improve capture and proposal processes for future competitions (Correct answer)
- To file a formal protest with the contracting agency
- To renegotiate the award with the winning contractor
Correct answer: To improve capture and proposal processes for future competitions
Lessons learned debriefs identify process gaps, strategy flaws, and intelligence failures so future pursuits benefit from continuous improvement.
CMP Proposal Strategy & Competitive Analysis 3
Which competitive intelligence source is MOST reliable for understanding a competitor's labor rate structure?