Strategy Makes a Strong Competitor in Tennessee
A national client pursuing a major re-procurement for one of the largest Medicaid managed care programs in the country needed to develop its strategy and positioning for a contract that covered multiple populations and offered integrated acute care, behavioral health, and long term services and supports benefits. The client also needed a process to integrate its strategy, features, programs, and message throughout a long and complex proposal.
Optimetra began by working with the client to identify key leaders and subject matter experts (SMEs) throughout the organization, as well as client staff who would be responsible for providing major parts of the content for the proposal. We then led a two-day proposal development workshop to educate the selected client staff about the best practices for analysis of a request for proposal and the ways in which to structure the messaging to achieve the best score in the eyes of evaluators.
Our strategy consultants followed the two days of training with two days of strategic meetings with the leaders and SMEs. We facilitated the discussions to help the client uncover its specific program strengths and to identify areas of weakness where action plans were needed to create business solutions. To help the client understand the urgency of the situation, while preparing for upcoming oral discussions with the state agency, we conducted part of the meetings in a “mock orals” format. In this, we asked client staff to address particular member case studies and explain how their business approach solved the member’s problem. This, in turn, helped uncover new strengths for us to highlight in the proposal, as well as new issues to address.
At the end of the work sessions, the client staff acknowledged that the training and work sessions left them better prepared for the impending RFP.
