APMP Foundation Certification Exam Study
Guide
Market Identification - answerThe ongoing activity that defines and qualifies target markets for
pursuing business.
Opportunity Plan - answerA documented plan that is developed during the opportunity planning
phase to identify actions and strategi...
Market Identification - answer✔The ongoing activity that defines and qualifies target markets for
pursuing business.
Opportunity Plan - answer✔A documented plan that is developed during the opportunity planning
phase to identify actions and strategies to position your customer to be the customer's preferred bidder.
Price-to-Win - answer✔A process for analyzing competitive and customer data to identify how to
package and price a winning offer to a customer.
SWOT - answer✔The analysis performed by organizations to address competitive positioning and
identify the outcomes needed to develop a compelling proposal response that wins the business. It
emphasizes the internal environment.
Benefit - answer✔Results from a feature of an offer that resolves a customer issue and demonstrates
the value the customer can achieve from resolving the issue.
Clarification - answer✔Communication to eliminate minor irregularities or apparent clerical mistakes in
an RFP or in a proposal.
Compliance Matrix - answer✔A list of specific customer requirements, often splitting complex, multi-
part requirements into sub-requirements. It helps proposal managers and internal reviewers verify that
the proposal meets all the requirements.
Compliant versus Responsiveness - answer✔Compliance is the act of meeting stated requirements.
Responsiveness goes beyond compliance and addresses customer goals, underlying concerns, and key
issues and values that might not be spelled out in the solicitation.
Customer Focus - answer✔A customer-focused bid clearly addresses the problem the customer has
agreed they are trying to solve and demonstrates how your solution meets their goals.
Customer Issues - answer✔Customer concerns that the offer will resolve. Issues may be the business
outcomes the customer is trying to achieve.
Customer Requirements Feature - answer✔The attributes and specifications of a product or service as
determined by the customer.
Hot Buttons - answer✔Singularly important issues or sets of issues that are likely to drive decisions,
usually associated with customer buying decisions. Hot button issues are items that the customer
repeatedly discusses and often are problems with a system, software, process, or resources inhibiting
the success of the customer's organization.
Non-Compliant Bids - answer✔A bid or proposal that does not meet the customer's requirements.
Protest - answer✔Written objection by an interested party to a solicitation, cancellation of a solicitation,
contract award, or termination of a contract award.
Reponse Matrix - answer✔A derivative of the compliance matrix. It is a roadmap for evaluators, pointing
to specific proposal response for each compliance item. The matrix may also contain a summary
response. It identifies where in the proposal you have addressed each of the solicitation requirements.
Competitive Intelligence (CI) - answer✔Objectively understanding the strengths, weaknesses, and
strategies of companies competing against your company for business. CI is a well-defined business
practice to understand the competitive forces and market dynamics that affect your company's viability
and long-term profitability.
Customer Intelligence - answer✔An understanding of a customer's needs--spoken and unspoken--and
the capabilities desired of a vendor/contractor to support requirements. It is a key element of the sales
and opportunity development process that occurs well in advance of responding to a bid or RFP.
Executive Summary - answer✔A short abstract of the main points of the offer aimed at the senior-level
decision makers in the customer's organization. It is the section of a proposal that provides an overview
of the offer and highlights the key selling points for customer decision makers.
Account Plan - answer✔A sales plan that is specific to one customer and covers multiple opportunities
with that customer.
Action Caption - answer✔A short, informative statement associated with a graphic that provides
additional information to help the reader understand what the graphic means.
Active/Passive Voice - answer✔Sentences written in active voice have a clear subject and verb. They
make it clear who does what. Passive-voice sentences are considered weaker because the subject
receives the action instead of performing it. Passive sentences usually contain a form of the verb "to
be".
Advantage - answer✔How, in the seller's opinion, a product or service may benefit the customer.
Advantages are potential benefits and are more powerful than features.
Aesthetics - answer✔A set of principles regarding the nature and appreciation of beauty. The study of
aesthetics increases the validity of many critical judgments concerning art.
After-Action Review - answer✔A systematic process to extract the learning from an event or activity.
The process addresses the questions, What should have happened? What actually happened? What can
we learn and apply for the future?
Annotated Outline - answer✔A simple writing or content plan. This is a structure for the proposal that is
usually derived from the customer requirements documentation. It amplifies a topical outline and helps
determine whether opportunity planning activities have made it into the planned propels outline and
placed you in a position to win.
Appendix - answer✔Supplementary material included at the end of a proposal that contain specialized,
relevant information that facilitates the decision making process.
Assumptions - answer✔Conditions that the bid team assume exist for the purpose of providing a price
or terms of service in a proposal.
Balance (Visual) - answer✔Balance is achieved when the visual "weight" of both halves of a graphic is
similar, giving a sense of equilibrium. Unbalanced graphics convey a sense of uneasiness.
Benchmarking - answer✔A systematic process for comparing your processes with those of other
recognized leaders in your field or industry to identify and close gaps.
Best and Final Offer (BAFO) - answer✔A customer request for a document that describes your
organization's final price. There may be more than one request for a BAFO. The customer requests a
BAFO after the proposal has been submitted to select the final companies to negotiate with or go
directly to award.
Bid Decisions (General) - answer✔Bid decisions are aimed at eliminating opportunities or sales leads
with a low win probability, this permitting a stronger focus on opportunities with a higher win
probability.
Bid Decisions Tree - answer✔A tool used to help you make an informed bid decision based on positive
and negative indicators. It results in a yes or no response leading to a qualified pursuit decision.
Bid/No-Bid Decision - answer✔A milestone after the opportunity plan is substantially complete. It
validates that you are properly positioned to win based on the opportunity plan.
Bid or Proposal Center - answer✔A support organization dedicated to generating proposals and other
response documents for customers.
Bid Pursuit Decision - answer✔Generally the first decision milestone to verify that the opportunity fits
your strategic direction and capability.
Bid Validation Decision - answer✔A decision mileage after the customer releases an RFP to address
obstacles to winning that were identified in the opportunity plan.
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