by Dr. Pat Dougherty, VP Strategic Planning & DOD, SSD
 We all know that the aerospace giants like Boeing and Lockheed Martin allocate significant overhead funding to pay salaries for full-time capture managers. No doubt it makes sense to invest several hundred thousand dollars per year for several years on a capture team when the opportunity offers the chance to bring in several hundred million or billion dollars in sales. The capture manager will work with the customer to help them understand what their company has to offer, determine what is achievable and define the RFP requirements. Additionally, the capture manager will work with his team to understand what it will take to develop a new product line or modify a current product to meet the customers’ needs.
But, what about the small company trying to win a $1M program? Can small businesses afford to invest in capture management activities?
Most small businesses work their staff very hard on current contract tasks and then assign business development related tasks as a side job. When the company wins new work everyone is breaking their backs just to accomplish tasks that they are under contract to complete. After these small companies bring the work to near completion they scramble back to business development tasks to bring in more work. Unfortunately, this seems to be a cycle repeated by small companies.
One of the difficulties about business development/capture activities that I learned years ago is that taking breaks away from the process makes it very difficult to efficiently jump back in later. When you take a break away from these activities you lose touch with your contacts, with the program opportunities and the customer organizations. In the meantime, your competitors are courting your customers. Small companies suffer this same dilemma when they try to re-engage engineers to work business development and capture management. Filling the role of a business development lead or capture manager was never envisioned by most engineers as part of their job description.
In most cases, the employees were hired specifically for their ability to complete the specific task required by the contract. Few employers have the foresight to discuss with potential hires their abilities/interest in business development and capture activities. As a result, many new hires are the best at executing work they were hired for and then reluctantly are forced to fill in as “best they can” in the areas of business development.
The solution seems to lie in multiple steps:
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Employers need to make certain that they have at least a few key staff members who are not only outstanding at their engineering expertise, but also have the social skills and desire necessary to succeed in business development and capture management activities.
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Management needs to establish expectations of pursuit activities with potential new hires as part of the interview process.
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Employers need to find a way to let these individuals continuously expend quality segments (>10%) of their time developing new business. These activities should include BD related tasks such as maintaining contact with one or two customers and their respective program needs. Some individuals may also need to take on the role of a capture manager for more mature pursuits and spend a bit more time working with the customer, providing minimal direction to an engineering team and reporting the status to senior management.
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These individuals need to be given goals or program targets to pursue and then rewarded if they are successful.
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Work to ensure that your staff doesn’t have a significant break in your business development efforts so that you don’t lose touch with the market or customers.
Small companies can’t afford NOT to invest in BD/capture activities. They need to hire staff with the right talents, manage expectations and invest in business development and capture management activities if they want to keep business growing.
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