The situation
A mid-size engineering firm in the Midwest — roughly 90 staff across two offices — was being squeezed in their pursuit pipeline. They had strong technical talent and a deep history of repeat work, but every new RFP was a fire drill. Principals were getting pulled in late, junior staff were assembling the wrong sections in the wrong order, and the firm was losing on quality submissions to firms with less experience but better-organized proposals.
Internal numbers from the prior fiscal year showed an average of 9 working days from RFP receipt to final submission, and a 22% win rate on qualified pursuits. Leadership wanted to get to 30% and keep growing the office without adding head-count to the proposal team.
What we built
Across an 8-week engagement we shipped three connected systems:
- RFP Intelligence Engine — parses an inbound RFP, scores the firm's fit across 12 dimensions, and produces a one-page go/no-go brief within an hour of receipt.
- Team-assembly automation — given an RFP, recommends the right project manager, technical lead, and key staff based on past project performance, current load, and resume-to-RFP relevance.
- Proposal drafting workspace — pre-populates standard sections (firm experience, key personnel, project approach) from the firm's technical library, with a clean review interface for principals.
How the work ran
We started with a 2-week Readiness sprint — interviews with three principals, the marketing lead, and the BD coordinator. We mapped the existing process, scored fit on each of the five readiness pillars, and produced a prioritized build plan. The firm was strongest on tech stack and team culture; weakest on data hygiene (their technical library was a sprawling SharePoint site).
From there we moved into the Systems build. Two engineers from our side, working in two-week sprints against a defined backlog. The firm assigned a senior project manager as the day-to-day counterpart, which is the single biggest factor in fast delivery — we don't take on engagements without that role filled.
After build, we ran a focused rollout. We trained the BD coordinator and three principals over four 90-minute sessions, then ran a live pursuit through the new system. We watched, took notes, and shipped two follow-up improvements within a week.
Within sixty days we were running pursuits two to three days faster, with better quality work, and our principals were finally able to focus on the relationship side of the bid. The numbers caught up with what we already felt. — Managing Principal, anonymized for client confidentiality
Outcomes after six months
Three measurements matter, all averaged across the six months following go-live versus the prior fiscal year:
- Win rate on qualified pursuits rose from 22% to 40% — a 18-point improvement, exceeding the firm's 30% goal.
- Average bid prep time dropped from 9 working days to 2 — a 78% reduction. Principals reclaimed roughly 14 hours per pursuit.
- Qualified pursuit volume increased 2.4× — the firm went after work they previously declined for capacity reasons.
The firm has since started a Stage 4 Expand engagement with us — a 12-month fractional team retainer building out the next layer of operational tooling, starting with daily field reports and a monthly owner-update workflow.
What we'd say to a similar firm
The biggest unlock isn't AI — it's standardization. The RFP Intelligence Engine works because the firm's technical library got cleaned up first. The team-assembly system works because the firm committed to maintaining a real skills matrix. The proposal workspace works because principals agreed on the standard structure for the sections they always rewrite.
If you're considering a similar build: spend the first two weeks on data hygiene and process documentation, not on prompts. The AI gets you 5× faster on the work — but only after the underlying work is legible enough to be 5× faster.