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March 16, 2005
Weaknesses and Deficiencies
It looks like my 2-3 week job is going to die, and with it will go my grand plan for a Proposal Saga. But in the interim -- and perhaps to make up for some of the work and money I will lose as a result -- my client has asked me to revise a proposal that they submitted in late February. The Government has reviewed the proposal and has officially opened negotiations/discussions with my client. In this case, "discussions" means that the Government has sent my client a three-page letter identifying the specific weaknesses and deficiencies in their proposal. My client must now submit a completely revised proposal that incorporates their response to these weaknesses/deficiencies. The letter itemizes over 20 weaknesses and an additional 15 deficiencies.
The Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) allows the Government to enter into such negotiations with bidders who are determined to be in the competitive range. According to the FAR:
Negotiations are exchanges...between the Government and offerors, that are undertaken with the intent of allowing the offeror to revise its proposal. Discussions are tailored to each offeror's proposal, and must be conducted by the contracting officer with each offeror within the competitive range.
The primary objective of discussions is to maximize the Government's ability to obtain best value, based on the requirement and the evaluation factors set forth in the solicitation. At a minimum, the contracting officer must indicate to, or discuss with, each offeror still being considered for award, deficiencies, significant weaknesses, and adverse past performance information to which the offeror has not yet had an opportunity to respond.
The distinction between "weaknesses" and "deficiencies" is not really clear, although the latter is worse than the former. At any rate, each of them have to be specifically addressed and incorporated in the revised proposal.
So I'll be pretty busy for the next few days.
Posted by Deborah at March 16, 2005 04:52 AM
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