Most companies experienced in federal proposal writing have their resumes, corporate project experience, and legacy proposal content in a corporate database like SharePoint. This is a good thing and, used correctly, is essential to efficient, low cost proposal writing.

But company management should be aware of the following scenario in using centralized legacy content.

Management: "Wow, look at this one at FedBizOpps! It is made for us and we have done it before. Let's slap something together out of SharePoint and respond."

Proposal Manager (if you have one): "But we don't know the customer."

Management: "Let's do it anyway, you should have everything you need. Revenue is going south if we don't get some proposals in."

Proposal Manager: "If we must I will assign the critical technical pieces to our best technical guys and maybe we can put something together."

Technical guy: "Here you go, I used what we had in SharePoint, and this should work."

Proposal Manger: "But this is straight out of SharePoint. I need insights and innovative solutions if we are going to have a shot at this."

Technical guy: "What do you expect, I only had the RFP work statement to go on, I don't know the customer."

In short, a SharePoint approach is a must but can result in many trees being felled that wouldn't have to be.