Price Your Bids Correctly With GovWin IQ Labor Pricing Analytics

In past blog entries, we have talked about finding federal government opportunities and steps you can take to optimize your bid/no bid calls. In this edition, we are focusing on pricing strategy, which can be an overlooked ingredient in the elusive recipe of winning more government contracts.

Developing your pricing strategy takes time. GovWin IQ’s research shows that a winning pricing strategy requires benchmarking as many data points as possible – job titles, contract award and incumbent data, education and work experience requirements, and labor rate comparisons. Yet, in reality, very few companies have a dedicated team of pricing analysts to research and compile industry rates and trends.

Further complicating matters in an increasingly competitive industry (research shows small and medium-sized businesses are planning to make investments in business development tools or personnel to remain competitive) is the additional time required to ensure the labor rates teaming partners are bidding are competitive.

Continue reading if you have ever lost a bid due to price or if you are interested in learning more about what data and trends to consider when structuring your pricing strategy.

Why Government Contractors Can Lose on Price

Conducting a thorough pricing analysis takes time and requires asking the following questions:

• Have my buyers bought the same or similar services in recent years?
• Have we determined a range of price “reasonableness” for the included labor categories between what is too low and too high?
• Have we uncovered how potential competitors and teaming partners are approaching price?

Failing to answer these questions can result in unsuccessful proposals that are not awarded to your company.  Here are a few examples of common missteps in pricing strategy to avoid:

• Not Recognizing that History Matters – It is essential to know what your buyer has paid for similar services recently.
• Miscalculations – Pricing too high or too low for included labor categories - both of these raise red flags with buyers.
• Not Gathering Competitive Intelligence – Before finalizing your pricing, avoid uncertainty with regard to what organizations you are competing against and what they are likely to bid.
• Unfamiliar Work Breakdowns – Particularly when attempting to win business with a new agency, not understanding the skill or education requirements for key personnel can diminish your likelihood to win.  

Introducing New Labor Pricing Capabilities for GovWin IQ

Thanks to a recent enhancement, GovWin IQ clients now have access to an enriched set of analytical tools that allows capture and proposal teams to conduct pricing analysis efficiently, by comparing millions of fully-burdened labor rates in seconds. GovWin IQ’s new Labor Pricing Analytics draws from more than 15 million historical and future labor rates covering 1,000+ distinct programs (extended by thousands of companies doing business with the federal government) to save proposal teams time when optimizing proposal packages.

Users can create and export pivot tables to review and compare current, average and escalation rates, as well as standard deviations. Do you recall the cloak of uncertainty discussed earlier that can doom pricing strategy? This data-powered technology from Deltek gives you actionable insights to help you evaluate how competitors are approaching price and helps you feel confident that you are on the right track.

With Labor Pricing Analytics, GovWin IQ users can also:

• Create visualizations of the labor pricing market with interactive analytics and data points
• Build inclusive job category searches with GovWin’s proprietary Smart Tags, bridging the jargon gap between agencies and industry
• Alleviate hours of work with custom pivot tables to optimize their next bid 

Learn More About How to Price Your Bids Correctly

GovWin IQ’s research shows that companies who sell to the public sector find it challenging to conduct thorough pricing analysis to support their proposals. With GovWin IQ’s retooled Labor Pricing Analytics, we are giving our customers the ability to analyze more than 15 million historic and future labor rates to evaluate how competitors are approaching price and – critically – to see what agency buyers have paid for similar services recently.

Ready to learn more? Register for this webinar hosted by Deltek Product Director Ben Kairys and Principal Research Analyst Bruce Thayer and discover how you can optimize your competitive pricing strategies with GovWin IQ.