The Only Way to Make Money on IDIQ Contracts

Business Articles | February 2, 2012

In a changing government contracting world, it is going to be harder to win IDIQ contracts. Even if you do win these contracts, you are not guaranteed a prize from winning. If this is the case you are probably missing some key things needed to win.

Changes are abound in the Government contracting world. The way we have to go about acquiring business is shifting as we speak. Several of our clients had procurements cancelled mid-proposal in the last month. We all need to adapt to survive in a shrinking and morphing market. The ongoing financial crunch and long budget approval cycles in the Government are already causing more awards to move to IDIQs and schedules. This is because the government needs to procure faster in the little window of time that they have between the budget approval date and the end of the fiscal year.

IDIQs are tricky, however. As you well know, when it comes to IDIQ vehicles, being the winner does not guarantee getting the prize. Wining an IDIQ competition is like making the playoffs. You still have to compete to win the trophy - task or delivery orders – in order to make actual money. Yet, many companies “collect” IDIQs that bring them very small or no reward at all. Every IDIQ has companies got “zero” in awards. Others make so little, it is hardly worthwhile to have fought to get the vehicle in the first place. The top four most common reasons for this are:

• The lack of proper set up prior to vehicle award – failing to implementing eight critical steps that would set up the company for success
• Reactive nature of responses to task order RFPs where companies throw something over the proverbial wall to barely make the deadline
• Poor task order response processes and tools, and absence of proper organizational mechanisms
• Failure to leverage the IDIQ vehicle creatively

At the same time, there are companies for whom jumping on an IDIQ vehicle is like riding an elevator of growth, winning upwards of 50% of all work. The great part is – there is no reason you couldn’t become one of those companies. You just have to know how – what are the industry best practices in becoming the number one task order winner.

Article Tags: Task Order

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The president of OST Global Solutions, Olessia Smotrova-Taylor, has 16 years of experience in business development, communications, and marketing, including 9 years in capture and proposal management. She makes it her goal to stay current with the best practices in winning proposals, and collaboration tools and techniques that help build fully integrated proposal teams.