Federal Capture Management – Identifying Teaming Partners

When you receive a proposal from a contractor, it typically includes a number of teaming partners all singing in unison that they are the only ones in world who understand your mission, can fulfill your requirements, etc. So what brings two or more companies together to pursue a federal contract opportunity? Well, there are a number of factors, but good capture efforts typically start with what’s called a capability / functional gap analysis. Basically, the contractor takes your published requirements, or understanding of your requirements, and assesses its capabilities and quals against them. A typical capability gap analysis looks like this:

If there are any gaps, as indicated by yellow or red, then the contractor better find some teammates to fill them. This requires some research and it helps to capture the findings like so:

As you can see, contractors (at least the good ones) diligently evaluate the best teammates to meet your requirements. The upshot? It pays to communicate your requirements openly, clearly and thoroughly. If you’re a KO or COTR, that means you need to understand your customer’s requirements. The contracting community looks to you to be the voice of the customer, not a paper shuffler.