This course shows you how to win the right multiple award Indefinite Delivery Vehicles (IDVs) and capture task orders on those vehicles.
Today, success in winning Government contracts depends on securing the right portfolio of IDVs — the primary way the Government prefers to engage companies under contract.
Multiple award IDVs — including Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts, GSA Schedules, BPAs, and other ordering agreements — are awarded to select groups of Government contractors who then compete for task orders (also called delivery orders or call orders).
Once awarded, IDVs enable companies to grow rapidly, as they can win task orders within weeks rather than waiting months or years for single-award contracts.
This self-paced course provides a complete understanding of how to identify, compete for, and win the right IDVs for your business — and how to maximize your success rate on follow-on task orders. You’ll learn proven methods, pricing insights, and competitive strategies that will help your company expand its contract portfolio and accelerate revenue growth.
This training course shows you how to win the right multiple award Indefinite Delivery Vehicles (IDVs) and how to capture task orders on those vehicles successfully.
Today, winning Government contracts is all about having the right portfolio of IDVs. This is how the Government prefers to engage companies and issue awards. Multiple award IDVs—including Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts, GSA Schedules, BPAs, and various ordering agreements—are awarded to limited groups of contractors who then compete for task orders (also called delivery orders or call orders).
Once awarded, IDVs enable companies to grow rapidly because they can win task orders within weeks instead of months or years required for single-award contracts.
According to Bloomberg Government analysts, here are some critical facts about multiple award IDIQ contracts to consider:
The Federal Government prefers IDVs. Total IDIQ spending continues to rise even as overall procurement spending decreases. The law requires all contracts with a potential value of at least $100 million to be awarded through IDIQs. More work is shifting under IDVs—meaning that without holding the right contract, your company may miss out on the most lucrative opportunities.
Only about 3,600 companies out of hundreds of thousands of Government contractors participate in non-schedule IDVs. This number has remained stable for years, which means that a small fraction of informed companies capture the majority of opportunities. It’s time to learn how to join their ranks—and even lead the pack.
Agencies keep selecting the same companies even as they expand the number of competitors on IDVs. The companies that have mastered the system of winning on these vehicles continue to grow their IDIQ footprint. Understanding their methods is the key to catching up—and this course will show you exactly how.
This self-paced course reveals how to win IDIQs against dozens (or even hundreds) of competitors, including preparing a competitive price proposal. You’ll also learn proven techniques for winning task order proposals.
Proposal deadlines and page counts are shrinking while competition intensifies, making it harder to win even when you’re the most qualified bidder. Many proposal teams only learn about task order requests when they’re released, leaving minimal time to respond. This course teaches you how to implement a system that maximizes your task order win rate and accelerates your response time.
This comprehensive on-demand course provides a complete, step-by-step “recipe book” for winning multiple award contracts and transforming them from costly investments into strategic growth multipliers.
The experts who created our business development, capture, and proposal training courses are highly experienced, currently practicing proposal professionals with years of success in Government acquisition and training. Through the course materials, they share actionable strategies, real-world insights, and tools based on the most current industry best practices. Check our instructors’ bios on our About Us page.
Course Curriculum
Learning Objectives
The participants will learn and practice skills in:
Understand the IDIQ trends in Government procurement.
Determining what IDIQ portfolio a company should have considering its core competencies and target agencies.
Qualifying an IDIQ for fit and conducting a capture effort to best position to win an IDIQ contract.
Contributing to an IDV win not only as a prime but also as a subcontractor.
Developing the IDIQ proposal content with the right answers to win the competition.
Applying the IDIQ pricing strategies.
Understanding why many companies fail to compete effectively and make good money on an IDIQ.
Cracking the “code” of an IDIQ to determine task order patterns and win strategies.
Positioning the right resources to help write persuasive and compliant task order proposals.
Adding more face value as a proposal manager on fast-turnaround task order pursuits.
Running mini-capture and creating an IDIQ specific Customer Map.
Establishing an infrastructure and environment necessary to maximize the task order win rate.
Developing an IDIQ-specific process for winning task orders.
Developing a reusable toolset for implementing a task order process.
Enacting a comprehensive marketing plan for the IDIQ.
Getting the entire company involved in winning more task orders.
Building a proposal library for winning fast turnaround task orders.
Preparing a concise text and information-packed graphics to convey your competitive advantages in an extremely page-limited proposal format.
Course Highlights
Module 1: Introduction and Learning Objectives
IDV foundations- what are the vehicles and how can a company make money on an IDIQ.
IDV benefits and trends in Government procurement.
Module 2: Understanding IDIQs and Defining Your Company’s MAC Needs
Why the Government likes IDIQs.
The types of IDIQs.
Navigating through IDIQ terminology.
How different IDIQs work and what it means for your business development efforts.
Top 20 IDIQs.
Products and services the Government buys through non-schedule IDVs.
Top agencies that spent money on IDVs.
The differences between IDIQs and requirements proposals.
Problems with leveraging IDIQs.
Techniques to determine what specific IDIQs your company needs. Exercise: Determine what IDVs a company needs to have in its portfolio.
Module 3: Preparing to Win an IDIQ
Gathering the key information you need to know about an IDIQ to determine whether it is a fit.
Determining proposal preparation details for solution development and resource planning.
Conducting an IDIQ capture effort, including customer engagement, intelligence gathering, win strategy analysis, IDIQ-specific competitive analysis, teaming, and solution development. Exercise: Perform a competitive analysis for an IDIQ with multiple competitors.
Module 4: Developing a Solution and a Winning Proposal for a MAC
Developing management, technical, past performance, and other solutions.
Planning for the proposal.
Establishing proposal security given the “incestuous” teaming and non-exclusive subcontractors, while gaining maximum benefit from team’s knowledge.
Special considerations for multiple award contract proposal reviews.
Proposal management best practices for winning IDIQs.
Techniques for running an effective virtual proposal with multiple teaming partners.
How to support proposals when you are a subcontractor and not the prime. Discussion: What best practices have the participants followed in preparing an IDIQ proposal?
Module 5: Winning IDIQs Through Content
Mastering the elements that are common from an IDIQ to IDIQ.
How to address the common proposal solution elements correctly to meet and exceed Government evaluators’ expectations.
IDIQ pricing strategies. Discussion: What IDIQ pricing strategies do participants find most applicable to their scenarios?
Module 6: The Secrets of Making Money on Multiple Award Contracts
The only way to make money on a multiple award IDIQs.
The reason why the number of companies winning IDIQs and task orders grows.
The secret of how to start “cracking the code” of your IDIQ.
How to determine task order patterns.
How to position to win the majority of task orders. Exercise: Identify patterns for a specific IDIQ.
Module 7: Organizing to Prepare Winning Task and Delivery Orders
Characteristics of a task order request for proposal.
How task orders differ in format even on the same IDIQ.
Personnel roles and internal and external resources necessary to win task orders.
What atypical proposal role is in fast deadline and page-limited task order proposals.
Training necessary for your resources to maximize effectiveness and efficiency in preparing winning task order proposals. Exercise: Given a company-specific scenario and resource constraints, determine the best path of action to establish a high-functioning task order shop.
Module 8: Establishing an Infrastructure and Environment Necessary to Maximize Your Task Order Win Rate
The tools you will need to develop a task order winning machine.
The resources required to prepare proposals more efficiently and effectively.
Developing a Task Order Manual to keep the team on the same page.
Determining the marketing rules of engagement for your IDIQ team.
Defining a unified customer message. Exercise: Determine marketing rules of engagement for a specific scenario.
Module 9: Developing an IDIQ-Specific Process for Winning Task Orders
Tailoring the process to the specific IDIQ procurement processes.
Techniques for developing a streamlined task order process.
Example of a task order process.
Conducting a mini-capture for task orders.
Creating a Customer Map.
Influencing the requirements during task order capture.
Developing and enacting an integrated marketing plan for the IDIQ.
Developing a reusable toolset for implementing your task order process. Discussion: What processes do the participants organizations need to implement or optimize?
Module 10: Developing the Task Order Engine to Ensure Wins
Setting up and tracking task order details in a pipeline.
Tracking customer-specific information important in task order wins.
Techniques for setting up an IDIQ-centered proposal library and developing reusable materials.
Types of proposal collateral to keep in the library.
Involving operations personnel in increasing your task order win rate. Discussion: What are the actions your organization will take to increase your task order win rate?
Module 11: Secrets of Preparing Winning Task Order Proposals
The biggest value proposal managers can add to running fast turnaround proposals.
Examples and characteristics of text specific to task order proposals.
Examples of info graphics used in winning task order proposals.
Rules for developing task order pricing.
Additional resource recommendations.
Exercise: Edit text as appropriate for a page limited task order.
Module 12: Summary and Recap
Meet Your Instructor
Olessia Smotrova, CF.APMP Fellow
Olessia has more than 25 years of experience in business development. She led winning bids for four out of the top five Government contractors, winning more than $26 billion over the course of her career in single award contracts. She is an AI developer and strategist, pioneering the use of generative AI in Government contracting. She has created and implemented AI tools for business development processes, proposal strategy formulation, and competitive analysis. She is an AI super-user and thought leader in the practical application of generative AI in synthesizing complex data, generating innovative solutions, and driving decision-making in high-stakes Government BD environments.
She is the author of the book How to Get Government Contracts: Have a Slice of $1 Trillion Pie and seven other books. She has taught a graduate course for the Stevens Institute of Technology, and she provided training to Treasury and NASA. She has served for 2 years as the President of the National Contracts Management Association (NCMA) Bethesda/Medical Chapter and for 2 years as the President of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) National Capital Area Chapter.
Olessia is recognized as an APMP Fellow for her contributions to the field of capture and proposals – the highest honor in the business development profession. Her skills span every aspect of business development, sales, and marketing. Prior to supporting Fortune 500 companies and small businesses as a proposal consultant and growing OST, she worked as a business developer for Raytheon and Lockheed Martin and wrote for the Financial Times of London.
Student Reviews
Anthony Needam
12/10/2024
This was new to me. It was very I formative. We received our packets late. I was not aware of how interactive this would be.
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Nao Gamo
11/07/2024
I highly recommend the "MASTER AI TO ENHANCE BD, CAPTURE AND PROPOSAL PROCESSES" course! Not just a high-level overview of AI and its capabilities, the course is full of practical tips that you can apply immediately. All the courses I have taken with OST Global Solutions have been well worth it!!
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Francisca Celmer
11/07/2024
The "Master AI to Enhanced BD, Capture, and Proposal Processes" class given by OST Global Solutions was truly outstanding. The instructor was incredibly knowledgeable and engaging. She made the material easy to understand and directly applicable. I highly recommend this class.
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Francisca Hep
11/07/2024
The "Master AI to Enhanced BD, Capture, and Proposal Processes" class given by OST Global Solutions was truly outstanding. The instructor was incredibly knowledgeable and engaging. She made the material easy to understand and directly applicable. I highly recommend this class.
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Jay Yudof
11/06/2024
The BD and capture using AI course what is comprehensive and effectively taught.
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andre downey
11/06/2024
The class taught alot of useful information on ai & working it in to our proposal development process
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Lilliana Reyes
9/20/2024
Great course! Clear information and great pace.
The information was very helpful for someone getting started in the proposal world or someone just trying to learn how to easily transition from InDesign to Microsoft Word.
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Aislinn Berge
9/20/2024
Took the full day training on Desktop Publishing For Proposal Writing with Phillip Pettet. I learned so much! Phillip was fantastic at explaining things and gave lots of tips and tricks for using Word. Thank you!
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TC Phil
8/28/2024
I recently completed the year-long Business Development Apprenticeship with OST Global Solutions, Inc., and it exceeded my expectations! The program is comprehensive, covering BD, capture, proposal skills, and so much more. It’s clear that OST is the best in the business—they have addressed the real skill gap in this field.
Their curriculum, aligned with Department of Labor standards for Federal Government Business Development, is TOP-NOTCH and the first of its kind in the nation! The training was practical, directly applicable to our business, and provided the expertise needed to succeed in this competitive industry. I highly recommend this apprenticeship to anyone looking to advance their career in Business Development. I plan on taking many additional courses over the next few years as they continue to stay ahead of the curve. Thank you, OST!
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George Franz
6/13/2024
Great course from OST Global Solutions! Olessia's vast experience in this area shines through and the course is chocked full of tips, tactics, and information sources to consider to perform competitive analysis and determine price to win for opportunities.
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Tiffany & Jay Jackson
4/29/2024
I've taken multiple classes with Olessia of OST Global Solutions and the classes are always well-structured and informative. The lastest course on AI is phenomenal - highly recommend it if you're looking to enhance your BD, Capture, and Proposal processes via AI!
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LaKeisha Thomas
4/25/2024
Alexia was a very engaging instructor. The AI class was mind blowing! The capabilities using AI to assist with BD processes are endless. I'm looking forward to implementing all of these new tools.
