Competitive Analysis: Black Hat & Price to Win (PTW)
This course will help you master the techniques for performing bid opportunity-specific competitive analysis. Topics covered include identifying your competitors; performing ethical competitive analysis using publicly accessible sources; quantitative and qualitative questions to answer; organizing full-blown and reduced-size Black Hat sessions; collecting relevant information on competitors’ approach; performing SWOT analysis; postulating competitors’ win strategies; ranking competitors; developing the resulting win strategies and action items such as ghosting; understanding the tradeoff between the technical solution, best value, and price; following a disciplined PTW development process; leveraging data from various PTW information sources; pricing competitors’ solutions; integrating competitive analysis with the pricing model; performing labor rate analysis; and applying strategies to win based on the whole offer, including the price.
This course will be most useful to you if you…
The expert who teaches this course
Olessia Smotrova
CF APMP Fellow, President and CEO OST Global Solutions
- 25+ years of experience in business development, capture, and proposals
- Led winning bids for 4 out of the top 5 government contractors, winning more than $20 billion over the course of her career.
- Published author and speaker
Course Details
Location
OST Global Solutions, Inc.
7361 Calhoun Place
Suite 560
Rockville, MD 20855
Check our Visitor Guide for location details, driving directions, nearby hotels and restaurants, and more.
Attendance
This course is available both in-person at our location and remotely via a fully interactive Zoom meeting with live video feed.
The price per seat is the same as in-person participation. Many of our students save on travel costs and attend from other locations.
Professional Certification
This is either a major or elective class that provides 1 unit (1 day) towards Bid & Proposal Academy Certification (depending on the certification type). By attending this class, you will receive 3 CEUs or more towards your APMP certification, or PDUs towards your PMP (check with the PMI on what they will honor).
For whom will this training be most relevant, valuable and effective in job
- Capture Managers
- Pricing Managers
- Strategists
- Finance Managers & CFOs
- Government Contractor Business Owners
- Company Executives & Senior Managers
- Senior Proposal Managers
- Business Developers
Course Materials & Cost
- Course Workbook
- Handouts
- Templates
- Forms & Checklists
- $1390.00
Highlights
After taking the Competitive Analysis: Black Hat & Price to Win (PTW) course, you will be able to:
- Understand how to lay the groundwork for competitive analysis during the capture process
- Identify three to five competitor teams and prepare for the Black Hat Analysis
- Organize and conduct the Black Hat exercise
- Perform the competitive analysis before and during the Black Hat session
- Use a variety of data sources to determine and correlate information about competitors
- Conduct SWOT analysis and postulate competitor win strategies
- Rank competitors against the stated requirements and government customer hot buttons
- Develop a competitive analysis-based win strategy
- Understand Price to Win principles and process
- Gather information for the PTW effort using a variety of paid and free sources, including filing FOIA requests
- Perform the PTW analysis
- Perform the labor rate competitive analysis, including reverse-engineering competitors’ wrap rates
- Develop pricing strategy based on the Price to Win
Course Curriculum
This is an interactive 2-day workshop that is 50% lecture, 40% exercises based on a real opportunity analysis, and 10% discussion.
- Introductions and learning objectives.
- Introduction to capture and overview of the capture process to offer you a big-picture perspective.
- Overview of the case study.
- What if there is no competitive analysis and PTW?
- Competitive analysis elements.
- Ethics of competitive intelligence and the information you must not touch.
- Four steps for developing a repository to collect knowledge on competitive intelligence.
- Other competitive analysis tips.
- Techniques for determining the list of prime contractors.
- Techniques for overcoming challenges in determining the teaming partners.
- A typical Black Hat setup.
- A sample Black Hat agenda.
- Black Hat groups organization.
- Determining government customer’s hot buttons.
- Analyzing the potential Source Selection Board members.
- Competitive analysis overview process as part of capture planning.
- Developing the viable competitor profiles.
Exercises: Determine a competitor list for the case study; capture the viable competitor profiles.
- Qualitative questions to answer about each competitor: the most useful capture information.
- Competitor analysis: company information gathering.
- Mining a variety of data sources for relevant competitive intelligence on government contractors.
- SWOT analysis.
- Determining competitors’ postulated win strategies.
- Ranking competitors individually and as an aggregate competitive field analysis.
Exercise: Go through the competitive analysis steps and develop competitor rankings against the home team.
- Comparing competitors with the “home” team’s win strategy.
- Developing the resulting action items and win strategies applicable during your overall capture process.
Exercise: Devise the home team’s win strategy based on the Black Hat results and determine the resulting strategic action items.
- Why Price to Win?
- Understanding the tradeoff between value and price.
- Understanding the best value continuum in government proposal evaluation.
- PTW development process steps.
- Mobilizing information sources for situational assessment of the PTW.
- Determining the funding budget for the target contract.
- Analyzing customer trends and behaviors and how this information impacts your PTW analysis decisions.
- Analyzing your competitors’ financial decisions and trends.
- Filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for cost proposals.
Exercise: Gather information to prepare for the PTW analysis.
- Identifying the price to compete.
- Developing a solution-based PTW.
- Pricing competitors’ solutions based on Black Hat findings and information gathered specifically for the PTW effort.
- Pricing competitors’ offerings per the RFP and competitors’ postulated win strategies.
Exercise: Develop a solution for a proposal segment and document in a capture plan.
- The process for performing a labor rate analysis for government proposals.
- The process, tips, and tricks for matching labor categories.
- Determining the competitors’ wrap rates.
- When and how to use GSA rates as data points.
Exercise: Practice labor category matching and labor rate analysis.
- Continuously updating the PTW model to iterate your solution.
- Creating the win.
- Course recap and summary.
Right now, you can invest in new skills and tools that will pay off in contracts won and help you succeed in your business.
This course will give you a proven methodology that will, combined with your diligent efforts, is sure to yield success in winning highly competitive government contracts.
Investment: $1390
Related Classes
How to Develop a Compliant Proposal
Foundations of Federal Business Development
Foundations of Capture Management
Seating is limited!
Cancellation notification must be received 10 business days prior to the training date. Upon notification, your registration fee will be refunded less a $100 non-refundable processing fee. Any cancellations beyond the 10 business days are non-refundable, but the course fee can be applied towards another training course, webinar, or an OST Global Solutions training product. No refunds will be made for the cancellation of a rescheduled course. Courses need to be rescheduled at least 24 hours in advance because we have to print the materials. As we constantly update the materials, they cannot be reused for another class. If a registrant didn’t request to reschedule and simply doesn’t show up on the day of the class, they forfeit the ability to reschedule. Attendee substitutions may be made at any time. Payment must be received prior to the course date. No-shows are liable for the full class fee.
If you would like to discuss whether this class is right for you or have any other questions, please call (301) 384-3350 during normal business hours.
If you’d like to receive an invoice and pay by check, please send an email to service@ostglobalsolutions.com*.
*All payments must be received prior to the course start date.