What does capture mean to you?

Imagine being at the forefront of a must win business opportunity, where every decision you make could mean the difference between winning a multimillion-dollar contract or losing it to a competitor. To be successful, you need to understand the gap between what it will take to win that deal and where your company is today. Then you need to develop a plan and execute to get to where you need to go.

What I just wrote is a murky place for a lot of companies. In theory it makes sense, but in practice, this is the world of capture management. It is a dynamic and multifaceted discipline that blends strategy, creativity, and precision. Not surprising, considering the complexity, there are many definitions of capture, and what is needed or expected from the person who manages the capture. Understanding the differences will help you to align your expectations with your anticipated outcomes.

Life learnings about capture management

The Multifaceted Nature of Capture Management

Capture management is both an art and a science. There are multiple methodologies, approaches, and processes. It is strategic and tactical. It is multi-disciplinary in the best sense. It is cat herding. It is executive briefings, subject matter expert coaching, and artifact development. It is project and program management. It is problem solving, and intelligence gathering, processing and utilization. It is both positioning to win and killing unwinnable deals. Capture is both an action verb and an Upper Case or lower case title (C/capture M/manager). When done right, it is agile development, not waterfall. Bottom line, it is not simple, but it is necessary if you want to have long-term success in a highly competitive market.

[By way of definition: Capture Manager is someone who has a title and career in capture and a capture manager is someone who assumes the role for a particular opportunity.]

The Importance of Adaptability

One of the many challenges is that organizations unknowingly define capture differently. Here’s how a variety of companies define capture. Where does your company land?

• Many large system integrators or defense and aerospace companies have mature well defined, disciplined and consistent capture processes, extensive milestone and investment reviews, committed resources, a defined B&P budget, and defined roles and responsibilities. Federal opportunities are led by a Capture Manager. Captures start when sufficient qualification has occurred, at an early stage, 12-36+ months in advance of an RFP, depending on size, scope and complexity of the deal. For some organizations, a Capture Manager is the ultimate deal leader and decision maker. They are considered critical because organizations count on these individuals to help them to win very large, game changing contracts.
• Other larger organizations have a combination of approaches. They have well defined processes and milestone reviews that are (mostly) consistently applied. Larger or very strategic opportunities are led by a Capture Manager from a centralized pool or from an account aligned pool. Some opportunities are account led with a capture manager from an account team or another non-business development team.
• Some organizations define capture, the verb, as proposal readiness activities. For example, an organization determines that they would like to pursue an opportunity with 3 months or less of an RFP being released. There’s limited time to position to win, but there’s time to do a readiness assessment and conduct activities to prepare for a response to an RFP. This is a tactically focused time and either type of C/capture M/manager is asked to assume the lead role.
• Some organizations lean towards the left of the growth lifecycle with their growth resources being responsible for pipeline building, identification and qualification, as well as capture activities. Other organizations lean towards the right of the growth lifecycle, wanting their Capture Managers to be responsible for both proposal readiness Pre-RFP capture activities, as well as the proposal management activities. Some organizations place their Capture Managers right in the middle of the lifecycle.
• There are organizations that do not have the official role of capture, but put the responsibilities of the verb, to capture on their billable staff.
• Some organizations do not believe in outsourcing capture, some prefer it, others don’t have any other choice.

C/capture M/managers, who are they?

There are as many different types of Capture Managers as there are approaches to capture. Capture Managers come from a variety of backgrounds – their education, training and experience often defines their approach. Some Capture Managers excel at only a portion of the following capabilities. A smaller group is excellent at most of these capabilities. Rare is the person who can do everything well on the list below. Every Capture Manager should be able to incorporate the voice of the customer and intel gathered into decisions made, actions taken, and the workstreams of their captures.

All of the following components, to a greater or lesser degree, are a part of being a capture manager:

Overall Capabilities

• From strategic, helping you to answer the question “how will we win and what will it take?” to tactical, making sure you do not miss any steps.

Customer Capabilities

• From developing a call plan and crafting questions that need to be asked to being capable and comfortable having customer conversations.
• From understanding federal acquisition to being able to masterfully strategize and educate internal and external customers on the art of the acquisition possible.

Solution Capabilities

• From assessing requirements and identifying gaps to developing a plan to fill those gaps.
• From being able to respond to a set of given requirements to being able to position your solution to win.
• From facilitating the creation of the solution to architecting your technical (what) solution and/or the management and staffing solutions (how and who will execute what you propose).
• From understanding that pricing is a key component to the solution to having the ability to develop your price to win, LOE/BOE, identifying the levers you can pull and crafting assumptions to mitigate risk.

Market Capabilities

• From researching and identifying potential teaming partners to building the team and negotiating workshare.
• From being able to identify the competitive landscape to being able to create a specific mitigation plan to address how to win against your biggest competitors.

Skills Capabilities

• From being a generalist who can work on any capture for any customer to being a specialist with deep functional, customer, agency or acquisition approach experience and knowledge.
• From being experienced with business development to knowing how to manage a proposal, write a section, or recover a response.

This is an extensive (but not exhaustive) list and a reminder that capture management is not simple and often requires trade-offs – your expectations versus the availability of the resources you currently have or have access to. However, there’s quite a bit of evidence that a disciplined approach that combines this art and science of capture management contributes to real success by way of new federal contracts. Captures, led by a C/capture M/manager will help you to improve your chances of winning.

Where do you start with capture?

We absolutely recommend that before you start making an investment in the pursuit of any strategic or large deal, please conduct an objective analysis of how ready your organization is to win. Objective, meaning “we’re not drinking our own bathwater” assessing what it will take a company to win the deal you’re interested in against where your company is today. An assessment that will determine whether you can bridge the gap from a credibility, financial and time perspective.

Should you need external support, Red Team will meet you where you are. We’re not a one-size fits all approach. We can help you determine what type of support you need in the moment for a particular deal, based on the opportunity, its complexity, the existing deal team, and how much time you have before an RFP is released. We will identify the right resource(s) for the opportunity and will align to your organizational culture and capture maturity.

We can also help you to build capacity, coaching, mentoring and upskilling your staff whether they’re Capture Managers or capture managers. We can help you to structure or build your capture organization. We can support your surge in needs as well as provide resources when hiring an FTE is not the right thing right now. We can support every part of the capture lifecycle and help you to position to win in an ever changing, constantly evolving market. We’re here to help you win.

About the Author, Jenn Kirkhoff

About 22 years ago, after the fall of one of the Big 5 accounting/consulting firms, I began working alongside some impressive individuals who identified themselves as capture managers. At the time, I had no idea what that entailed, but they certainly understood government business. Although they were aligned with business development, their role was distinct. I expressed my interest in becoming a capture manager but was informed that my eight years of management consulting experience were not enough—I could not credibly advise senior leaders on how to win work, capture training or not. I had to live every part of the process, celebrate successes and learn from losses. That just took time. It was a humbling series of discussions, but they took the time to guide me on the right path, and for that, I am grateful.

Interested in talking to Jenn about your capture efforts?