BACKGROUND

AIS and Its Culture of Capture 

Applied Information Sciences (AIS) is a leading IT services and consulting firm that assists clients of all sizes—from startups to Fortune 100 companies, state and local governments, and defense and national security agencies. AIS helps these organizations migrate to the cloud, maximize their technology investments, and solve complex IT challenges. 

Kim Pack, the President of Federal at AIS, is a seasoned business executive with over 30 years of federal and commercial experience in Strategic Planning, IT Services, Management Consulting, and Business Development and Capture. At AIS, Kim has leveraged her extensive experience to foster a culture of growth and innovation, particularly in proposal management. 

CHALLENGES FACED

A Need for Speed and Efficiency 

With government contract bidding becoming increasingly competitive, AIS faced the challenge of improving the speed and quality of their proposals without disrupting existing workflows. There was a need to optimize the proposal process, reduce manual labor, and ensure high-quality compliant submissions that stood out among a growing number of competitive bids. 

SOLUTION

Seamless Integration of pWin.ai 

AIS chose pWin.ai because its architecture and Shipley best practices aligned perfectly with AIS’s processes, ensuring smooth adoption. 

Kim views pWin.ai as more than just a tool—“it’s an indispensable member of AIS’s proposal team, trained with Shipley’s best practices.” AIS’s proposal team, already trained in Shipley’s winning methodologies, found that pWin.ai synced effortlessly with their established workflow, reinforcing continuity and stability, and making the transition smooth and intuitive. 

Alongside its built-in Shipley best practices, pWin.ai integrates seamlessly with standard proposal workflows in SharePoint, Excel, and Word tools, reducing adoption bottlenecks. As a result, pWin.ai was not seen as a disruptive force but rather as a welcome addition that enhanced the proposal team’s capabilities and provided immediate value. 

BENEFITS

Elevating the Capture Process with pWin.ai

One of the primary ways pWin.ai has transformed AIS’s capture process is by changing the timing and approach to opportunity assessment. Initial drafts are generated quickly and efficiently by utilizing pWin.ai early in the response process, sometimes even before the RFP lands, allowing team members to start from a more advanced stage in the proposal development timeline. This shift reduces deadline pressure and frees up to time for more strategic thinking and creative problem-solving.  

pWin.ai has been a game-changer in the capture process in several ways: 

• It provides preliminary assessments and identifies gaps or areas needing improvement early on. 

• It enables the proposal team to address issues proactively, leading to more thorough and well-rounded proposals. 

• It increases the chances of winning bids by generating more comprehensive and compliant proposals. 

• It reduces manual writing efforts in the initial stages of proposal development, allowing the team to focus more on innovation and differentiation. 

• It supports the creation of compelling, unique proposals that stand out in the highly competitive government contracting market. 

IMPACT

pWin.ai’s Flight Plan: A Human-Led Process Facilitating Proposal Creation 

The pWin.ai process is governed by an overarching Flight Plan, which allows the proposal team and subject matter experts to align on and set a vision for a winning proposal. This plan controls every detail of the generative AI model’s work. 

Kim describes the Flight Plan as “human-led,” ensuring that while AI facilitates proposal creation, human insight and control remain central. The proposal team meticulously gathers and inputs all relevant information, including customer pain points, win themes, and competitive analysis, ensuring the final proposal is finely tuned to meet client needs. 

The Flight Plan offers several key advantages: 

• It allows team members to input specific information, tailor content, and direct the AI on what to include or exclude. 

• It preserves the intimate knowledge and understanding business developers bring, highlighting key win themes. 

• It enables pWin.ai to generate proposals that are not only technically sound but also strategically aligned with the client’s needs and AIS’s strengths. 

By combining the efficiency and analytical capabilities of AI with the nuanced understanding of experienced proposal managers and technical experts, AIS produces proposals that are both high-quality and strategically focused. This approach enhances proposal quality while ensuring the team retains control over content and direction, leading to better outcomes and higher win rates. 

A 24/7 TEAM MEMBER 

AIS views pWin.ai as an Indispensable Part of its Proposal Team 

One of the most notable advantages Kim found in pWin.ai is its ability to work autonomously while the team is away. After setting up the Flight Plan and initiating the process, AIS’s proposal team can leave for the day, confident that pWin.ai will generate a draft overnight. This capability ensures that a well-formed draft is ready for review by the time the team returns to work. 

The continuous workflow and automation of writing maximize productivity, allowing the team to focus their working hours on areas where they add the most value, such as client engagement, strategic planning, and creative problem-solving. 

EVOLVING WORKFLOWS 

AIS’s Present and Future Workflows 

Currently, AIS’s senior proposal managers own the Flight Plan. They involve technical experts early on to input critical information, ensuring the data used by pWin.ai is both accurate and complete. 

AIS has also enabled solution architects and technical experts to input information directly into the Flight Plan. Looking ahead, AIS plans to transition ownership of the Flight Plan to business development and account executives earlier in the capture process, allowing them to play a more active role in shaping strategy and direction from the outset. 

The goal is to embed the Flight Plan deeply into the capture phase, creating a cohesive and proactive approach to proposal management in which business development executives, account executives, and proposal managers work collaboratively from the start. 

CONCLUSION

Revolutionizing AIS’s Capture Culture

pWin.ai has transformed AIS’s capture process, significantly improving efficiency, creativity, and team morale. By seamlessly integrating into the existing Shipley-trained team, augmenting the capture process, and ensuring a human-led approach through the Flight Plan, pWin.ai has become indispensable to AIS’s proposal development strategy. 

Kim Pack’s leadership and strategic vision have been instrumental in this transformation. They have demonstrated the powerful synergy between human expertise and advanced AI capabilities, positioning AIS for continued growth and success in the competitive federal market.