In-depth requirements review and familiarization for offerors prior to delivery of final proposals.
Government buyers often want prospective offerors to learn more about requirements before submission of full proposals. Discovery is like an in-depth site visit that allows interested sources to conduct due diligence. The government may provide a reading room and access to key requirement owners for direct exchanges with individual companies. In order to get the best possible proposals, the Discovery process takes the site visit concept and makes it more interactive, letting offerors ask specific questions. This is typically done after release of the final solicitation and before receipt of full proposals, possibly after phase 1 of a multi-phased procurement when the competitive pool has been reduced to only a few remaining offerors.
- Reduces the often overwhelming advantage of incumbency.
- Incumbents typically have greater access and insight to close-at-hand information, such as the background of the mission, the environment, or the underlying government need.
- Awardee transition and ramp-up times are reduced due to better understanding of the work.
- Builds supplier diversity and resiliency by creating a more manageable playing field for competition
- A thorough understanding of the requirement results in more competitive and customer-responsive offerors from industry.
- Offerors can ask questions of the 'as is' landscape to better understand the scope and to better shape their final phase proposal submission.
- The government receives improved performance due to a better alignment of requirements and the selected offer.
- SMALL BUSINESS BENEFIT: Allows new entrant small businesses to gain insight and a level of understanding about the requirement that would otherwise not be available
This is a new technique from the DHS Procurement Innovation Lab that has now been done a couple times successfully. The process of having an interactive learning session with prospective offerors after an initial down-select phase and before submission of the final price and technical proposal is a new process that the acquisition workforce is not doing.
