Perfect Video Capture Manager 11.6
Agathe Thies
Capture management, also called capture planning, is the process of gathering insight, building connections, developing competitive intelligence and strategizing how to win a future request for proposal (RFP) opportunity.
Essentially, a capture plan gives your company an advantage with the customer. It allows you to connect with them, demonstrate your understanding of their needs and position your company as the best solution. And, this all happens before receiving the RFP.
The timing of capture planning is particularly important. After all, when it comes to large projects, if you only start considering how to win when you receive the RFP, you may already be at a disadvantage. Larry Newman, author of the ebook, Shipley Capture Guide, explains:
Unlike account planning or business development, which strategize how to win new customers, the capture management process is specific to a particular procurement project. So, throughout the customer relationship, you may create several capture plans. Luckily, much of the intelligence you gather in your initial capture plan will apply to future opportunities as well.
When executed properly, capture management transforms an informal process of relying on gut feelings to influence a customer into a methodical approach based on research. Additionally, beyond the primary goal of moving from an unknown position to a favored position, additional capture management benefits include:
Your time is valuable, and capture planning is a long and detailed process. Naturally, not every RFP requires an in-depth, long-term strategy. For the highest possible return on investment, capture planning should be used primarily in pursuit of high-value, complex opportunities. Accordingly, the practice is common for organizations seeking to win government business.
A capture manager is the person responsible for the research, analysis and strategy that create the capture plan. In a large business, the capture manager may be a dedicated role within the proposal team. Consequently, they work closely with several teams. In most cases, they bridge the gap between business development and proposal creation.
However, in small- and medium-sized businesses, the proposal manager, sales manager or business development lead may act as the capture manager. Also, many proposal development consultants offer support in this area. For example, they may help you build a specific capture plan, or they may help create or optimize your capture management process.
To be successful, capture management must begin early. Not only is a significant amount of research required, but you must also have time to execute your plan by making connections with your customer. Most capture plans take between nine and 18 months to create and complete.
Capture Management is too important to be delegated to the last individual standing when all of the direct charge numbers are handed out elsewhere. Inexperienced Capture Managers need tips, tools, methods, processes and insights on how to conduct effective capture.
We often assist clients by helping to train their Capture Managers. We have learned that every individual is different, and as with management training, we need to identify their strengths and build on them. We also identify their weaknesses and show them workarounds. Furthermore, it is important to recognize that these lessons need to be reinforced by upper levels of management, so we can give practical and proven suggestions on how, as a senior executive, they can help develop executable and winning capture and win strategies.
Dr. Richard Nathan, PhD, is the former CEO of Key Solutions. He has over 45 years of corporate management and federal proposal development experience. He has served as strategic lead, capture manager, proposal manager, orals coach, and review team lead. His ability to develop and integrate effective win themes and discriminators unique to a given contract opportunity has resulted in multiple large contract wins with DOE, NASA, DHS, DoD as well as state and local governments.
Congratulations! The RFP has finally dropped! As a capture manager, you identified a contract opportunity and spent 1 to 2 years building the winning team. You developed and executed a capture plan, and you shaped the procurement. Now, you breathe a sigh of relief as your part of the job comes to a close, or does it?
If you want to submit the winning bid, then the most likely answer is no. The capture manager's job is about half done. The capture manager is the most knowledgeable person about the team, the customer, and intimate details of the procurement. Capture Managers can provide insight and work with the proposal manager to deliver the win. Here is the best advice for a capture manager.
The Proposal Manager is responsible for producing the written sales document, based on inputs delivered in the capture process. The proposal manager integrates the RFP requirements and capture strategies to produce a compliant, compelling offer. The capture manager should partner with the proposal manager as they manage the process to ensure the capture content is available to them.
Business development is a partnership where capture and proposal management professionals must work together to submit the winning bid. Download our Capture Management Toolkit for free customizable tools including a qualification matrix template, capability matrix template, and SWOT analysis for a Black Hat Review.
Before capture, when I was new to GovCon with only a few years of work experience under my belt, I supported proposals, business development and marketing, Back then, I was in complete awe of capture managers. I thought capture was the coolest profession...
When you start as a capture manager, they expect you to ask for help. You also get assigned the smaller, simpler opportunities, so you cannot mess up too badly. (By the way, if this is not the case, sound the alarm bells).
As you acquire experience and build credibility, your reward is working on larger and more strategic opportunities. Since the heart of capture is all about competition, you never stop learning and you must continually strive to get better at capture. When you are a senior capture manager or executive, they expect you to be knowledgeable, but you still need to ask questions and consult with other people.
While this journey may sound totally unappealing to you, I cannot imagine making a better career choice then when I chose to pursue capture. In the end, all of the hard work, discipline, successes and hard-earned lessons have been completely worth it.
Once captured, KCM intelligently identifies and classifies the type of document, extracting the required information and making the data ready for other systems to process. Routing of the data is automated on a system such as financial or accounting software, network storage or cloud services such as OneDrive or Dropbox.
The best capture manager certification is Project Management Professional (PMP). The Project Management Professional (PMP) is awarded by the Project Management Institute. The advanced certification is for more experienced employees as it often requires some work experience to acquire.
The most in-demand capture manager certification is Project Management Professional based on all active job postings. Having this capture manager certification will give you access to more capture manager jobs with higher salaries.
Capture manager certifications allow job seekers to demonstrate their competency as an capture manager to employers. However, not all capture manager certifications provide the same value for job seekers.
Below you'll find a list of the best capture manager certifications. Obtaining an capture manager certification will not only give you a leg up when you apply for jobs, but will also increase your potential salary.
The most common combination of capture manager certifications include: Project Management Professional (PMP), IT Information Library Foundations Certification (ITIL), and Advanced Pain Management Practitioner Certification (APMP).
Fusion Order Management is designed to improve order capture and fulfillment execution across the order-to-cash process. It serves as a central order hub for multichannel and omnichannel environments. The application streamlines the process of capturing, pricing, and configuring orders. Orders received from external sources can also be modified and processed for fulfillment. It provides prebuilt integrations with other cloud services, centrally managed orchestration policies, global availability, and fulfillment monitoring.
Cloud Order Management lets you capture and revise orders with simple SKUs, configured items, and services. The application provides user-configurable business rules that default order values, such as customer bill/ship to information and pricing policies. It offers real-time product availability information and validates the order prior to fulfillment. Centralized pricing capability executes discounting rules, pricing segmentation, tiered pricing, tax calculation, recurrent pricing for services, and manual price adjustments. Configurator is integrated with pricing that provides capabilities to create, test, and deploy configuration models, including rules/constraint definitions and runtime UIs.
Distributed Order Management is an application that enables organizations to accurately and efficiently manage customer orders across multiple order capture and fulfillment systems. It is designed to orchestrate orders across a distributed omnichannel environment including many silo legacy systems. It enables you to accurately and efficiently manage customer orders across multiple channels and determine the best inventory stocking location or production facility where the order will be filled and shipped.
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