In This Week’s Newsletter:
- Opportunity Spotlight of the Week: DOE ORISE
- Four To Follow: Four Interesting Pursuits
- Capture Corner: When They Ask for a White Paper, They’re Running Capture on Industry
- Pricing Insights: How to Get the Best Out of a Price-to-Win Analysis
Opportunity Alert – DOE ORISE
Contact Katie: katie.clatterbuck@hinzconsulting.com
Department of Energy (DOE), Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE).
On September 16, 2026, the Contracting Office released an Expression of Interest (EOI), Draft PWS, and RFI for interested parties to provide responses on managing programs such as scholarships, fellowships, and internships; facilitating scientific and technical resource integration, provide emergency medical expertise for radiation incidents, and maintain health and exposure data systems. On September 22, 2026, the Contracting Office released Q&As. Additional comments, questions and responses to the RFI and Draft PWS are due no later than 5:00 PM ET by October 7, 2026. The final solicitation for this $3.75B Full and Open/Unrestricted opportunity, is estimated for release in February 2027, with a possible award timeframe of September 2027. Reach out to Hinz Consulting for Capture Management, Competitive Analysis, Price to Win, or Proposal support, and continue to monitor SAM.gov for updates on this opportunity.
Four to Follow
- U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Corps Systems Command (MARCORSYSCOM), Post Deployment Sustainment Support for the Global Combat Support System – Marine Corps (GCSS-MC). The Marine Corps has need for service management, service operations through the Enterprise Service Desk and GCSS-MC Operations Center, and production and pre-production system sustainment. Contractors are to support solution development, environments, enterprise training and training devices, and product lifecycle service transition for change requests, engineering change proposals, and other system modifications. This $500M IDIQ is set for release December 2026 with an award anticipated in April 2027.
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Enterprise AI Data and Technology Strategy Arch OM Enhancement and Design. On September 25, 2026, the Contracting Office released a Request for Information asking for interested vendors to provide services across the three functional areas supporting the ICE OCIO: AI, Data, and Technology Strategy/Architecture. These functional areas provide platforms, architecture, standards, governance, strategy, and priority solutions relating to AI, data, and technology enablement across the ICE enterprise – AI Data Technology Strategy (ADTS). Responses to the RFI are due no later than 10:00 AM ET by October 16, 2026. Final solicitations are set for release in January 2027 with awards in April 2027. The competition type and contract value are currently unknown.
- Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Program Support. On September 28, 2026, the Contracting Office issued an RFI to conduct market research supporting acquisition planning and budget development for a potential future contract or series of contracts involving the review of commercialization plans submitted with NIST SBIR proposals. The work includes providing qualified personnel to evaluate individual commercialization plans against Government-provided criteria and deliver advisory scores and written comments. Responses to the RFI are due no later than 11:00 AM ET on October 13, 2026. The Government anticipates releasing a synopsis and solicitation on GSA eBUY or SAM.govat the end of 2026.
- Department of the Air Force, Global Unified Airbase Readiness and Defense (GUARD) IDIQ. On September 25, 2026, the Contracting Office released a draft RFP and RFI for contractors to provide logistics support and sustainment tasks necessary to repair, sustain, and maintain operationally fielded Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) at both tactical and fixed installations worldwide. Responses to the RFI are due no later than 12:00 PM ET on October 14, 2026. Phase 1 Industry Day is scheduled for October 20-22, 2026, and Phase 2 industry day October 27-30, 2026. The final RFP for this $1.98B Partial SB Set-Aside is set for release in December 2026, with an award date of June 2027.
When They Ask for a White Paper, They’re Running Capture on Industry
Contact Nick: nick.mccauley@hinzconsulting.com
When a program office asks for a white paper, many teams hear “light lift.” Five to ten pages. No Section L. No price volume. We’ll get engineering a template on Thursday and submit on Friday.
That is how you miss the down-select and still help write the next round.
A requested white paper is not a brochure. It is Phase 1 of a capture the government is running. Commercial Solutions Openings, OTAs, BAAs, CSOs under a master announcement, some RFIs that are RFIs in name only — same move. They want to know who is real, who is vapor, who already operates the thing, and who understands the problem well enough to put a usable solution on paper before they’ve figured out their own requirements.
You see it across sectors. USSF and MDA using two-phase CSOs for ground architecture. Army and SOCOM BAAs that turn a 10-page paper into an invite-only prototype. Health, energy, and DHS “areas of interest” that look informal until the down-select list comes out.
Bid/no-bid before anyone creates a response template.
- Are we already in this market, with a customer relationship and proof we have done the work — or do we just want in?
- Which area of interest, topic, or problem statement are we actually answering? “We do C5ISR” is not a topic.
- Can we show maturity and scale in the page count without a science fair?
- Who else will paper this, and can we match or beat what they’ll claim?
- If we get pulled forward, do we have people, teammates, and a price posture for the next phase in 30 days?
If the honest answer is “we’d like to be in this market,” do not write the paper. You will not position well against firms the customer already knows. What you will do is put a usable technical approach in the file. The next AOI, Q&A, or Phase 2 instruction often reflects what they learned. The companies with the relationship then answer a requirement that looks a lot like your unpaid homework.
Five rules that keep a requested white paper from becoming a gift.
1. Answer their problem statement, not your capability slide. Map every paragraph to the topic, AOI, or BAA objective. If a sentence does not help an evaluator sort you into yes/no, cut it. Cross-sector test: would this page still make sense if you swapped the agency logo? If yes, it is too generic to survive.
2. Lead with evidence, not adjectives. Sites, users, TRL, throughput, patients served, sorties supported, acres treated — whatever “we already do this” looks like in your market. “Innovative architectures” is not a discriminator. It is the claim everyone else will make too.
3. Put the offer model on the page. License, service, prototype-to-production, GOCO, lease, as-a-service. Different models, different risk. If you hide the model, they will assume the one they already want.
4. Qualify. Do not write the award volume early. Give enough to prove you can do the work. Leave the detailed design, full teaming stack, and pricing architecture for the phase that leads to an award. You are trying to get selected, not to finish their market research.
5. Run a color team. Short page counts still need a review. White papers are not free-for-alls: compliance still matters, claims must be validated, and you still need a pass for claims that teach more than they sell. If the discriminator is a process, algorithm, or data right, describe the result, not the recipe
What capture owns that “just write five pages” will not.
Someone must pick the topic, the offer model, the ghost, and the no-bid. That is capture work compressed into two weeks. The paper is the artifact.
A FAR Part 15 RFP tells you how you will be scored. A white paper tells you that they have not finished deciding how they will buy (or exactly what they will buy) and they want industry to help them decide. That can be a shaping opportunity if you already belong in the conversation. It is a bad bet if you do not.
If you want the market and you are not positioned to paper it
Do not submit. Use the announcement as a map. Read the AOIs to see where the customer is heading and who they already trust. Go find those firms and try to subcontract or team on their Phase 2 — do not invent a Phase 1 story. That is how you get a foot in the door and past performance in a market you were not in. Then you can show up later as a prime who is a real contender. Wanting in is a campaign. A white paper is a selection event. Those are not the same task.
If your team is staring at “request for white papers” as a quick content task, stop and ask the only question that matters: are we positioned to be selected — or are we helping write Phase 2 for someone who is?
How to Get the Best Out of a Price-to-Win Analysis
Contact Dr. Tom: thomas.hudgins@hinzconsulting.com
This week we’re kicking off a two-part series on Price-to-Win. First up: how to set your PTW up for success.
Price-to-Win (PTW) analysis is an investment in winning, but it is only as good as the conditions that drive it. Treat it as a strategic tool to improve Capture and Pricing and you’ll seriously boost your PWIN. Treat it as a late-stage validation or ‘double check’, and you’ll get limited use, or frustration, at the result.
Start early. The most valuable PTW work happens at draft RFP or even during shaping. Early analysis gives you time to adjust your solution, teaming, and labor strategy before decisions harden. A PTW delivered two weeks before submission can only confirm what you already feared.
Be clear about the question. Are you deciding bid/no-bid? Setting a price ceiling? Predicting how the incumbent will bid? Testing whether a new teaming arrangement changes your position? A focused question produces a focused answer, and it keeps the analysis from drifting into generalities.
Share your intelligence. Your capture team knows things no outside analyst can find: customer hot buttons, budget signals, incumbent performance issues, and rumors about who is teaming with whom. PTW analysts work from public data and competitor profiles, but your insider context sharpens every assumption.
Understand the evaluation. LPTA and best value tradeoff competitions demand very different PTW approaches. In an LPTA, every dollar matters; in a tradeoff, a strong technical score can justify a higher price. Make sure the analysis reflects how the government will actually weigh price.
Challenge the assumptions, not just the number. Every PTW rests on estimates about competitor labor rates, wrap rates, staffing levels, and strategy. Ask how each was derived. If an assumption doesn’t match what you know from the field, say so.
Treat it as a range, not a target. A good PTW gives you a price band with probabilities attached, not a single magic figure. That range is where your real decisions live.
Get these fundamentals right, and your PTW becomes a major competitive weapon that drives a better solution and price, enabling higher PWIN and also higher profitability in execution.
Next week: You’ve got your PTW in hand. Now what? We’ll cover what smart organizations actually do with the analysis.
- September 24th: 2026 Intel Summit in Falls Church, VA
- October 20th: Google Public Sector Summit in Washington, D.C.
- October 24th: GovCon Summit in McLean, VA