Naval Supply Systems Command Change Management Support Solicitation: Bid or No-Bid (A)

Abstract

Cowan and Associates (C&A) provided strategic planning, business planning, change management, performance measurement, and knowledge management support to various Navy commands. Its managing director, Jeff Pottinger, was contemplating a Request for Proposal to provide change management support services to the Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP) in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Pottinger was intimately aware of the significant change management challenges facing NAVSUP through his experience with several previous contracts supporting NAVSUP, and he knew his company had the capability to support its requirements. He was meeting with C&A's founder and president and its CFO to discuss this opportunity and whether to devote scarce resources to writing a winning proposal. Excerpt UVA-S-0222 Rev. Mar. 18, 2020 Naval Supply Systems Command Change Management Support Solicitation: Bid or No-Bid (A) Jeff Pottinger sat in his office in Arlington, Virginia, contemplating the Request for Proposal (RFP) in his hands. Here was an opportunity to provide change management support services to the Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP) in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Pottinger had retired out of NAVSUP in 2001 after serving 24 years of commissioned service. As a Supply Corps Officer, he had gained extensive leadership, logistics, and financial management experience, in both his sea and shore assignments. His logistics assignments had included positions in transportation, warehousing, material-handling operations, inventory management, and operational logistics. After retiring, Pottinger had spent a year with a large DoD consulting firm before going to work for a big-box electronics retailer, overseeing a two-state district of eight retail stores with $ 100 million in annual sales. Pottinger joined Cowan & Associates, Inc. (C&A) in late 2005 and for the past six years had provided strategic planning, business planning, change management, performance measurement, and knowledge management support to various Navy commands. Additionally, Pottinger provided executive education support to the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration and the Naval Postgraduate School. As managing director of the firm, he played a key role in determining which opportunities the company would pursue, coordinating the company's response to key proposals (especially those for strategic customers), and determining how the company would execute a contract it had won. . . .