As a relative newcomer to the field of capable Command & Control (C2) system developers, the contractor knew that his bid for this system needed a discriminator to win. The competitors were all more experienced and eager to win this business. The strategy was to prepare a solid technical proposal that was priced to win. “But-in” was not an option, however. The bid had to be low, but also credible and profitable. Because the system was software intensive, the focus of cost control was placed here. Knowing the danger of pricing the software development after the proposed design had been established, the contractor decided to adopt a novel approach: impose the software development price to win (target cost) on the design before the proposal development team has an opportunity to fall

Join for free to read