Michael Asner, author, teacher and expert on how government contracts are bid and won, thinks the composition of a successful bid is nothing less than a work of art.

Michael Asner, author, teacher and expert on how government contracts are bid and won, thinks the composition of a successful bid is nothing less than a work of art.

“Given the complexity of meeting the demands stipulated in government documents — being able to satisfy them and compose a successful bid takes a tremendous amount of knowledge and discipline and it’s really an art form,” said Asner, who is offering the Internet’s first online library and how-to guide into the arcane practice of composing bids for government contracts.

Proposal writing has become a sub-industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year employing thousands of people throughout North America, said Asner, who is based in White Rock,

“It’s almost a hidden industry but electronic procurement is rapidly transforming the proposal writing process. Government sales and marketing is no longer simply a matter of good client relationship management followed up by a hastily prepared proposal.

“Neither is it just a question of price. There’s a whole art involved in crafting a proposal that convinces the government that the solution being offered is practical, has merit, provides value, that the proponent can provide assurances and references and that the whole thing won’t blow up on them,” he said.

When it comes to “blowing up,” information technology systems sold to government have a terrible record, he said.

“Seventy per cent of info technology projects are either late, over-budget or don’t deliver. That’s why a lot of effort is needed convincing government that they will be buying a safe solution,” Asner said.

He’s author of The Request For Proposals Handbook — the 600-page industry bible that sells for $295 US, a hefty price that doesn’t appear to deter interested readers.

“The first edition of 2,000 has sold out. We’re now on the second,” Asner said.

Proposal writing started back in the fifties and grew out of the aerospace industry when procurement contracts became more technical, he said.

“We’ve now reached the stage where some companies bidding on a large contract will spend $1 million putting together a proposal — and they don’t win,” he said.

Asner’s company, along with the U.S.-based Wood River, has launched Proposalworks.com — a Web site that gives prospective bidders access to market intelligence, an online library of successful proposals, articles, videos and a panel of experts ready to assist in composing a proposal.

Access to the library and archives of successful bids and equally important — government evaluations of them — are free.

Asner said the site could have economic value if it attracted enough attention and prompted the interest of other sectors of the procurement industry such as law firms, software companies, researchers and publishers.

He said he and his partners put the site together in order to collect all the available information on procurement techniques and proposal writing that “is scattered all over the place.”

“There was no central place for people to go for information,” he said.

To build the archives, Asner said successful proposals and government evaluations by the Montana government were used.

“Montana has got a completely open system and every document they produce is available.”

B.C. is more reluctant to release such information and it would likely require a freedom of information request, he said. Even then, if the information provided by a firm successfully awarded a contract is judged proprietary it will be omitted, Asner said.

However, as there is little difference between government contract specifications in the U.S. or Canada, information gleaned from such places as Montana can be used to show the way in such places as B.C., he said.