Business Capture & Pricing
In complex, highly competitive markets, allocating resources and aligning an organization to the right opportunities is essential. We believe this allocation and alignment are best driven by customer and competitive insights which are then reflected in winning proposal and pricing strategies.
Avascent has supported its clients’ capture efforts for decades, and since 2009 has assisted Tier 1 and 2 aerospace and defense contractors secure tens of billions of dollars in award value through rigorous, data-driven cost estimates and analysis of pricing strategy, customer requirements, and competitor positioning.
With particular focus on strategically important pursuits, companies rely on Avascent’s independence, flexibility, and complete transparency to understand and shape customer requirements, select the right partners, and differentiate from competitors through:
- Analytical cost modeling/PTW support built on solid empirical data,
- Industry-leading parametric models, and
- Rigorous customer and competitive analysis
Avascent works with business development and business capture management professionals to:
- Provide new customer insights;
- Bolster supply chains;
- Support better decision-making;
- Challenge internal biases; and
- Craft winning strategies
Our Business Capture & Pricing Services
Price-to-Win
Rigorous pricing analysis is increasingly recognized as a minimal requirement for any important capture effort, but too often the models used are antiquated, opaque, and of limited value in making hard-headed decisions on pricing strategy. Avascent conducts extensive primary and secondary source research and uses industry-leading parametric modeling techniques to deliver transparent pricing analyses that drive strategy, rather than just providing “a number.”
Pricing Strategy
A winning strategy begins with a sound understanding of what it takes to compete in a given market. Avascent conducts bid-specific and market level analyses to help clients understand and optimize their cost positioning relative to customer expectations and the competitive field. These detailed evaluations enable Avascent to make actionable recommendations pertaining to its clients’ market entry and bid/pricing strategies.
Should Cost Analysis
Obtaining an understanding of the customer’s cost expectations is critical to any successful pricing strategy. Avascent leverages both top-down and bottom-up methodologies for every estimate to provide clients with actionable insights into customer cost mentality and expected bid range. Detailed, component-level research informs both solutions/hardware models as well as labor-driven services models.
Competitor Analysis
Understanding the competition’s capabilities and motivations is fundamental to a winning pursuit. We provide clients with a rigorous assessment of competitor core competencies, reputations with customers, corporate motivations and financial health, teaming structures, likely aggressiveness in new business capture, and multiple other variables critical to understanding overall bid position.
Black Hat Support
Black Hat meetings provide opportunities for capture teams to discuss competitor strengths and weaknesses and develop offensive and defensive ghosting strategies. By performing detailed procurement and competitor evaluations, Avascent is in a unique position to provide clients varying degrees of Black Hat support, ranging from participation to facilitation and training.
Customer/Stakeholder Assessment
A thorough understanding of the procurement environment, including key customer stakeholders and their needs and priorities, is essential to crafting a winning proposal. Avascent identifies and evaluates both stated and unstated preferences of each important stakeholder group and implications for our clients’ (and their competitors’) bid strategy.
Color Team Review Facilitation
A systematic capture process is only as good as the rigor applied throughout the various color team reviews. Avascent has long provided targeted facilitation support and independent analysis to ensure that color team reviews generate the insights necessary to win.
Quick-turn Bid Support
As proposal deadlines approach, capture teams sometimes find themselves missing critical data needed to inform their final bid strategy. Avascent has the scale and broad-based expertise to respond with targeted and actionable analysis, even under the tightest of timelines.
Design to Cost
Meeting overall profitability targets dictates that new business be evaluated in terms of its potential contribution to the bottom line. We help executives develop realistic, early perspectives on likely cost drivers to help shape the technical approach and support bid/no bid decisions.
Our Business Capture & Pricing Experts
TIM STANOS
MANAGING DIRECTOR
As co-lead of the practice, Tim has supported sub-system suppliers, IT services providers, platform OEMs, systems integrators, and engineering services firms.
BRIAN SWEENEY
SENIOR DIRECTOR
Brian specializes in business capture, post-merger integration, and financial strategy support for large professional services clients.
MATT BREEN
SENIOR DIRECTOR
Matt leads client engagements in transaction advisory, international market expansion, global competitive dynamics, and price-to-win analysis.