In proposal bid/no bid meetings we often hear: "who is the competition and what are they going to do". Don't be obsessed with competition. You can't really know what they're going to do and if your customer relationship is strong you may have eliminated most competitors. Don't spend valuable proposal development time in trying to figure out who may be competing.

But assume they are going to be formidable and write your proposal to defeat them even if they aren't really there. Write and price to win like you were going against IBM, Google or Microsoft. You may be and just don't know it.

You have to make a profit but price assuming that you will be undercut. Assume that someone can write a proposal as responsive as yours. Fearing competition in general will make your proposal better.