Opportunity plans document the actions and capabilities required to meet customer
needs and win bids. An opportunity plan documents current customer positioning and
how a seller will move from an unknown position to a known position, an improved
position, and finally, a favoured position.
Purpose And Contents Found
The purpose of opportunity planning is to advance the opportunity to consistently
improve a seller’s position to ultimately win business. Opportunity overview, external
analysis, internal analysis, strategy development, action plans, execution and
monitoring are contents found in an Opportunity Plan.
Best Practices
Best practices you can follow in Opportunity Plan include gathering and analysing
intelligence about the customer and the competition where you must determine the
need for every customer requirement, gain insight into what they will offer, at what
price, and most importantly, what the customer thinks of them.
Work collaboratively with the customer to craft a solution addressing explicit
requirements and hot buttons, hence the process should be dynamic, flexible, current,
and collaborative. Develop program, opportunity, and proposal budgets and Initiate
teaming and make or buy decisions. Teaming partners are a key means of achieving
capabilities not available within your own company.
Conduct opportunity plan and competitor simulation reviews and mock up an
executive summary. Guide transition of opportunity plan elements to the proposal
plan and win strategies inform proposal strategies, which can serve as the anticipated
structure of the solicitation. The more you can shorten the final proposal planning
timeframe before you begin, the more time you will have to develop a winning
proposal.
Common Mistakes
There are several pitfalls and mistakes you can fall into while making the document.
Opportunity plans can be time-consuming to create, and teams may be eager to
complete an opportunity plan before focusing on other tasks. An opportunity plan
must be developed collaboratively with a customer. Interacting with the customer
during opportunity plan development benefits your company in the long run.