In This Week’s Newsletter:
- Opportunity Spotlight of the Week: NASA ISRDS 4
- Four To Follow: Four Interesting Pursuits
- Capture Corner: Capture Maturity: Knowledge vs. Consistency
- Pricing Insights: The Discomfort Is the Point: Why a Disliked PTW Analysis Is Often a Good One
Opportunity Alert – NASA ISRDS 4
Contact Katie: katie.clatterbuck@hinzconsulting.com
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Intelligent Systems Research and Development Support 4 (ISRDS 4).
NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) has need of a trusted partner to provide research, development, and infusion support services across multiple domains including artificial intelligence, knowledge-based systems, prognostic signal analysis, autonomous control, and quantum computing. The final RFP for this $400M Full and Open/Unrestricted IDIQ is tentatively scheduled for release in October 2027 with an anticipated award in June 2028 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
- Department of Treasury, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Customer Integration Gateway (CIG) (formerly known as the Integrated Enterprise Portal IEP 2). The IRS has need for a strategic partner to provide managed IT services including program and contract management, infrastructure, application hosting, security, cloud professional services, and transition services. This effort aims to improve IRS oversight, security posture, and cost visibility while ensuring continuity and modernization of IRS digital services. Final RFPs for this $1.7B multiple award BPA is set for release in December 2026 with an award in May 2027. The competition type is currently unknown.
- Department of the Army, Development Command (DEVCOM), Army Research Laboratory Trusted Partner Program. The Army is looking for a strategic partnership with a trusted contractor to provide support in handling, producing, and storing sensitive information and work products. Support is focused on eleven technical fields including biological sciences, electromagnetic spectrum sciences, energy sciences, human factors, mechanical sciences, military information sciences, network and cyber sciences, photonics and quantum sciences, extreme materials, terminal effects, and weapon sciences. The final RFP for this $400M IDIQ is set for release in January 2027 with a potential award in May 2027. The competition type is currently unknown.
- Department of the Air Force, Contractor Logistics Support (CLS) for Multiple Air Force Terrestrial Based Air Surveillance Sensors. The Air Force requires a contractor to provide field site and service support, integrated logistics support, and system lifecycle sustainment including technical data management. Sustainment tasks include system maintenance, engineering analysis, software updates, logistics support, and hardware sanitation and disposal. The final RFP for this $242M Full and Open/Unrestricted opportunity is scheduled for release in February 2027 with an award in May 2027.
- Department of the Navy, Architect Engineering Services for Housing and Other Lodging Type Projects, NAVFAC Pacific. The Navy requires design and engineering services including Military Construction (MILCON) project documentation, functional analysis concept development (FACD)/Design Charrettes, final design construction documents, and technical surveys and reports such as site engineering investigation, topographic survey, geotechnical investigation, hazardous material survey, and munitions of explosive concern (MEC) survey. The final RFP for this $49M Full and Open/Unrestricted IDIQ is set for release in December 2026 with a projected award in September 2027.
Capture Maturity: Knowledge vs. Consistency
Contact Nick: nick.mccauley@hinzconsulting.com
Most organizations can describe the capture process. Far fewer execute the important parts of it the same way on every pursuit. The gap is rarely a missing template or tool. It is inconsistency in a handful of behaviors that separate teams that win with comfortable and sustainable process from teams that rely on heroics when the RFP drops.
A useful way to look at this is maturity. Not a complicated model with dozens of attributes, but a simple view of how consistently a team qualifies opportunities, engages the customer, documents what it learns, and makes deliberate decisions before proposal work begins.
Reactive. Opportunities enter the pipeline because someone found them or because leadership wants volume. Qualification is light or after the fact. Customer contact is sporadic. Documentation lives in email and personal notes. When the RFP arrives, the team scrambles. Win rate is unpredictable and heavily dependent on a few strong individuals.
Emerging. There is some qualification discipline and regular customer contact on the bigger pursuits. Capture plans exist for major opportunities, but they are often incomplete or not updated. Handoffs to proposal management are uneven. Black-hat or competitive work happens on some bids and is skipped on others. The process works when the right people are involved and has gaps when they are not.
Defined. Qualification criteria are written and used. Capture plans are expected on pursuits above a certain threshold and are reviewed. Competitive assessments and customer engagement are standard rather than optional. There are basic gates or decision points before significant proposal resources are committed. Knowledge is more likely to be captured in shared documents than in one person’s head. Results are more repeatable, even if the team is not yet measuring the process itself.
Managed. The team tracks a small set of leading indicators that actually change behavior—qualification rigor, depth of customer engagement, completeness of competitive work, and quality of the capture-to-proposal handoff. Gates are real. Leadership is willing to say no or slow down on opportunities that do not meet the bar. Institutional knowledge practices reduce the damage when people leave. Pricing and solution decisions are informed by documented customer signals rather than late-stage assumptions.
Most companies sit between Emerging and Defined. They have pieces of good practice, but the pieces are not applied the same way across the portfolio. Moving up a level does not require a new system or a larger team. It usually requires making two or three behaviors non-negotiable.
For teams still in Emerging, the moves that improve results fastest are usually a written qualification scorecard that is used, a simple expectation that capture plans exist and are reviewed before proposal kickoff, and a basic competitive assessment on any pursuit above a defined threshold. For teams that are already Defined, the next gains tend to come from measuring a few things that matter and enforcing the gates so that resources follow the best opportunities rather than the loudest ones.
Higher maturity means more opportunities are declined or delayed, and it means investing time earlier than many organizations are comfortable doing. The alternative is continuing to discover gaps after the RFP is on the street, when the cost of fixing them is highest and the options are fewest.
Capture maturity is less about having a sophisticated process and more about running the important parts of the process the same way every time. The teams that improve their win rate over multiple years are usually the ones that close that consistency gap first.
If you are trying to move your capture process from Emerging to Defined—or from Defined toward something more managed—and want an outside view of where gaps are, reach out. Hinz Consulting works with companies on exactly this: assessing current capture practices, identifying the changes that improve results fastest, and helping teams implement the discipline that improves win rates without adding unnecessary process.
The Discomfort Is the Point: Why a Disliked PTW Analysis Is Often a Good One
Contact Dr. Tom: thomas.hudgins@hinzconsulting.com
Every capture professional knows the moment. You present the price-to-win analysis, and the room goes quiet. Then come the objections: “That number can’t be right.” “Our solution is worth more than that.” “The competitor would never go that low.”
It’s tempting to treat that reaction as a sign something went wrong. More often, it’s a sign something went right.
A price-to-win analysis is not meant to validate a team’s hopes. Its job is to tell the truth about the competitive landscape: what the customer is likely to pay, what competitors are likely to bid, and where your offer realistically needs to land to win. When that truth conflicts with internal assumptions about cost, margin, or perceived value, friction is inevitable.
If no one ever pushes back, ask yourself a harder question: is the analysis truly independent, or has it quietly drifted toward telling leadership what they want to hear? A PTW that confirms every expectation provides little value. The real worth lies in surfacing the gaps early, while there is still time to adjust the solution, sharpen the strategy, or make an informed no-bid decision.
That said, discomfort alone doesn’t prove quality. The credibility of a PTW rests on its rigor: sound competitor intelligence, a clear understanding of the customer’s budget and priorities, transparent assumptions, and defensible logic. When you’ve captured every element and can walk stakeholders through how you reached your conclusions, pushback becomes a productive conversation rather than a debate about opinions.
So the next time a stakeholder says they don’t like your analysis, take a breath. Listen for any legitimate gaps and fix them if they exist. But if your work is complete and well-supported, stand firm. Your job isn’t to make people comfortable. It’s to help them win.
- October 20th: Google Public Sector Summit in Washington, D.C.
- October 24th: GovCon Summit in McLean, VA
- December 3rd: 2026 Healthcare Summit in McLean, VA