Capture planning
Capture planning is the pre-RFP work of positioning to win a specific opportunity: building customer relationships, shaping requirements, assessing competitors, and drafting win themes — so the proposal writes from a strategy rather than reacting to a deadline.
The proposal industry's most repeated finding is that bids are largely won or lost before the RFP is released. Capture planning operationalizes that: identify the opportunity early (sources-sought notices, incumbent contract end dates, buyer signals), invest in customer understanding, influence the requirement where legitimate channels exist (RFI responses, industry days), analyze the competitive field, and make a deliberate pursuit decision. Its artifacts — the capture plan, win themes, competitor assessments, teaming decisions — become the proposal's skeleton. Small teams skip formal capture and pay for it in generic proposals; even a one-page capture summary per pursuit changes what gets written.
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