If you’ve ever responded to a Request for Proposal for a technical product, you know that the RFP often has mandatory criteria. If you don’t meet all of the mandatory requirements, you’re not going to win.
Unless you do.
I am not going to name the vendor who submitted this proposal for two reasons:
The alleged corruption in this bid may not have affected the vendor in question, but the vendor’s in-country agents. And yes, I know you have to select your agents carefully, but sometimes it’s impossible for vendors to know what the agents are doing.
As the article indicates, the vendor in question was not the only one to receive corruption allegations. And that’s all I’ll say about that.
Back to the bid, which was for an identity system in Nepal. At least two foreign companies bid on the system. The article describes the bid from one of those companies.
The technical sub-committee found that [THE VENDOR’S] bid for both packages failed to meet the required technical criteria. Specifically, in Package 1, [THE VENDOR] did not satisfy any of the 238 required technical specifications. In Package 2, the company fell short of 50 of 297 listed technical requirements.
Normally, if you meet exactly 0 out of 238 mandatory requirements, you don’t get an award.
Despite these findings, the evaluation committee overrode the technical sub-committee’s recommendations and allowed [THE VENDOR] to advance to the financial round. This directly contradicts Nepal’s Public Procurement Act, which mandates that only technically compliant bids may proceed. One member of the technical sub-committee withdrew his signature from the final evaluation report two weeks after it was submitted, indicating internal dissent within the department’s own review process.
The non-compliant vendor actually won the award…but there were a lot of questions. And action was subsequently taken.
The department’s latest procurement, a five-year contract worth approximately Rs 7.66 billion awarded to two…firms, triggered a prolonged legal and regulatory battle before culminating in the arrest of the department’s own director general on June 15, 2026.
Yes, arrest.
Specifically, of the Director General of the Department of Passports, Tirtha Raj Aryal, who also chaired the five-member evaluation committee that waived the technical non-compliance.
I’ve worked in proposals longer than I’ve worked in biometrics. Although my first proposals experience wasn’t in writing a proposal. It wasn’t even in writing a proposal letter. (I’ve told that story before.) It was in writing a REQUEST for Proposal.
Granted, it was a pretty rudimentary RFP. Through the guidance of a Moss Adams consultant, I wrote an RFP for a non-biometric poster company that needed a computer system. It was primarily a checklist: do you do this? Do you do that? Companies that automatically checked every box ended up being discarded, while the two companies that put some thought in their responses and actually said what they couldn’t do, and why, move to the finalist stage.
Over the last 30+ years I’ve dealt with RFPs that were much better written, but for the most part I’ve specialized in responding to requests for proposal rather than writing them.
Writing the procurement documents: the pre-acquisition and procurement support from two companies
Writing RFPs takes a different skill set. The RFP writer, either an employee of the company/agency issuing the RFP or an independent consultant, has to simultaneously addresss:
The procurement standards of the entity issuing the RFP.
The needs of the stakeholder within the entity.
The reality of the environment in which the potential respondents operate. For example, even if the entity demands 100% biometric accuracy, no vendor can deliver 100% accuracy so don’t ask for it.
While there have been giants in biometric RFP consulting over the years, two entities that are active today are Applied Forensic Services and Biometrics Consulting Partners.
“An expertly guided ABIS pre-acquisition and acquisition can result in greater agency stakeholder satisfaction, reduced deployment time and costs, and increased public safety for your jurisdiction.
“Your agency needs a knowledgeable acquisition professional who understands your stakeholders, strives to keep your vendors focused, and produces a unique acquisition that addresses your concerns and obtains agreement from your stakeholders.
Michael K. French, owner of Applied Forensic Services LLC (AFS), draws upon 12 years of experience with a law enforcement agency, 13 years of experience with ABIS vendors, and eight years of service on forensic and industry standards bodies. He is knowledgeable about all aspects of an ABIS acquisition through his involvement in approximately 50 ABIS implementations including the FBI Next Generation Identification system (NGI).”
French’s services include consulting with all stakeholders, developing the many documents required in a solicitation, and conducting benchmarks of proposal finalists.
Biometrics Consulting Partners
Biometrics Consulting Partners, a multi-consultant entity, provides similar procurement support:
“Biometrics Consulting Partners (BCP)’s staff have led procurement activities in both agency and biometric vendor settings. This experience enables a unique perspective which helps anticipate risks and clearly identify agency needs.
“BCP applies this unique and rare expertise to help government agencies strategically develop system requirements and articulate them in ABIS, Live Scan, MobileID, Mugshot, Patrol, and Applicant Processing RFIs, RFQs, and RFPs.”
The experience of the BCP principals is even more impressive than Mike French’s experience, including local, state, national, and international deployments in law enforcement, government benefits, and other areas.
Answering the procurement documents: Bredemarket proposal services for biometric identity firms
While both entities also have vast experience in answering RFPs written by others, I’d like to toot my own horn in this regard.
Bredemarket
While Applied Forensic Services and Biometrics Consulting Partners (BCP) primarily assist government agencies in writing biometric RFPs (the questions), Bredemarket assists biometric identity vendors in writing the compliance-driven proposal responses (the answers) to win those contracts.
After my mininal RFP writing experience in my pre-biometric days, I’ve spent decades responding to RFPs while employed by Printrak, MorphoTrak, and Incode, and by working with Bredemarket clients.
While I’ve written hundreds of proposals and proposal letters and secured tens of millions of dollars of revenue for my employers and consulting clients, let me just focus on three notable proposal efforts.
How did I answer the questions for the Louisiana Automated Fingerprint Identification System (Printrak)?
I joined Printrak right as it began to sell its Series 2000 AFIS.
Probably the most notable proposal in that initial year was one for the State of Louisiana.
This wasn’t just a simple client-server system (multi-tier would come later when I was the Omnitrak/Printrak BIS product manager for Motorola). This was a multi-server implementation, in which the clients fed into six regional centers that themselves fed into the central AFIS.
Complex, but valuable in solving crimes throughout the state. It solved crimes and identified people; what more could you ask for?
How did I answer the questions for Albuquerque and other cloud-based Automated Biometric Identification Systems (MorphoTrak)?
Up until this time, all of MorphoTrak’s ABIS deployments were on-premise.
I wrote the first three proposals for the new cloud-based MorphoBIS Cloud.
This required coordinating the technical response.
More importantly, I also ensured that other aspects of the bid (financing, pricing, legal, and support) accorded with a service-based model. This is very different from an on-premise model: for one, the vendor doesn’t receive a single dime until after it is providing the service. No pre-payments at contract signature, requirements document finalization, shipment, and testing completion.
This resulted in a monumental transition in how MorphoTrak deployed its projects and realized its revenue, but the end result was a more reliable stream of revenue and better service for the end customers.
How did I answer the questions for the undisclosed biometric front-end system (Bredemarket client)?
This consulting client responded to a Request for Proposal for an undisclosed entity requiring multi-biometric submission services.
I not only wrote the winning proposal, but also managed the project for the first two releases of the supplied product.
So what can I do for your identity/biometric firm?
Now I didn’t win every single proposal that I wrote, but I’ve won enough to know what a proposal needs and what it doesn’t. Similar to what I’ve said in other contexts, a winning proposal needs customer-focused, benefits-oriented responses that move the prospect to buy. Proposals also need some sort of process: perhaps a complex 96-step process, perhaps a less burdensome one.
“THE DEPARTMENT OF Homeland Security is moving to consolidate its face recognition and other biometric technologies into a single system capable of comparing faces, fingerprints, iris scans, and other identifiers collected across its enforcement agencies, according to records reviewed by WIRED.”
But those very “records reviewed by WIRED” include this statement:
“This RFI is for planning purposes only and shall not be construed as an obligation on the part of the Government. This is NOT a Request for Quotations or Proposals. No solicitation document exists, and a formal solicitation may or may not be issued by the Government as a result of the responses received to this RFI.”
And even if this actually WAS a true procurement…HART was originally announced during the Obama administration in 2016. Ten years later, it still hasn’t happened.
An interesting Request for Information (Notice ID 70RDA126RFI000003) for a multi-biometric matching system was posted on SAM.gov on Friday, and it’s turning some heads. But is YOUR organization reading an RFI that is turning YOUR heads?
Bear in mind that this is a Request for INFORMATION, not a Request for PROPOSAL. And this is made clear in the document:
“This RFI is for planning purposes only and shall not be construed as an obligation on the part of the Government. This is NOT a Request for Quotations or Proposals. No solicitation document exists, and a formal solicitation may or may not be issued by the Government as a result of the responses received to this RFI.”
Forget the technical requirements…look at the BUSINESS requirements
Now I could get into the…um…minutiae of the request for information about a biometric matching system, the requirements for everything from presentation attack detection to on-premise/hybrid/cloud deployments, and a host of other things.
But in this case, the business requirements outweigh the technical requirements…by a LONG shot.
“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is seeking an enterprise-wide, scalable, and secure biometric matching software solution to support mission-critical identity verification, vetting, and investigative operations across all DHS Components, including CBP, ICE, TSA, USCIS, USSS, and Headquarters. The contractor will provide a DHS-wide enterprise license for multi-modal biometric matching software, along with all associated services, integration support, maintenance, and technical assistance necessary for full operational deployment.”
And in the next section:
“DHS is looking to acquire an enterprise-wide biometric matching software solution, including all licenses, services, and technical support necessary to enable seamless integration with all DHS biometric systems.”
Matching for ALL DHS components, and integration with ALL DHS biometric systems. This could just be a teeny system for limited operations…or it could be a super system. Since they’re asking about scalability, potential respondents should probably assume the latter.
So we’re talking loads of money.
Of course it could be scaled way down when or if a final RFP comes along. And maybe the vast expanse of the RFI is merely designed to get system integrators to drool.
Incidentally, Bredemarket offers proposal services to assist identity/biometric vendors in RFI and RFP responses such as this one. Over the years my proposals have won over $50 million in business. Presumably the respondents to this RFI have full proposal staffs (or maybe not), but if YOUR organization requires RFI and RFP assistance, schedule a meeting with Bredemarket.
Bredemarket services, process, and pricing.
(2/17/2026: See Anthony Kimery’s assessment of the RFI here.)
As I’ve said before, there may be many different stakeholders for a particular purchase opportunity.
For the purpose of this post I’m going to dramatically simplify the process by saying there are only two stakeholders for any RFP and any proposal responding to said RFP: “business” people, and “technical” people.
Google Gemini.
The business people are concerned about the why of the purchase. What pressing need is prompting the business (or government agency) to purchase the product or service? Do the alternatives meet the business need?
The technical people are concerned about the how of the purchase. Knowing the need, can the alternatives actually do what they say they can do?
Returning to my oft-repeated example of an automated biometric identification system purchase by the city of Ontario, California, let’s look at what the business and technical people want:
The business people want compliance with purchasing regulations, and superior performance that keeps citizens off the mayor’s back. (As of January 2026, still Paul Leon.)
The technical people want accurate processing of biometric evidence, proper interfaces to other ABIS systems, implementation of privacy protections, FBI certifications, iBeta or other conformance statements, and all sorts of other…um…minutiae.
So both parties are reading your proposal or other document, looking for these points.
So who is your “target audience” for your proposal?
Both of them.
Whether you’re writing a proposal or a data sheet, make sure that your document addresses the needs of both parties, and that both parties can easily find the information they’re seeking.
If I may take the liberty of stereotyping business and technical users, and if the document in question is a single sheet with printing on front and back, one suggestion is to put the business benefits on the front of the document with pretty pictures that resonate with the readers, and the technical benefits on the back of the document where engineers are accustomed to read the fine print specs.
Google Gemini. It took multiple tries to get generative AI to spell “innovate” correctly.
Or something.
But if both business and technical subject matter experts are involved in the purchase decision, cater to both. You wouldn’t want to write a document solely for the techies when the true decision maker is a person who doesn’t know NFIQ from OFIQ.
In theory, the decision on whether or not to submit a bid for a business opportunity is a well-established process: the bid/no bid process…that is, if you assume that no bidding something is desirable.
As you would expect, Shipley Associates (I may have mentioned Shipley before) offers a detailed description of a bid decision.
“Bid decisions are decisions gate reviews triggered by ongoing customer or opportunity intelligence. The opportunity manager (or capture manager) along with management determines whether to advance, defer, or end the pursuit. The decision hinges on whether you have the capability or can obtain the resources to pursue and subsequently capture an opportunity that meets your business objectives.”
But why make one decision when you can make three?
“Consider splitting the bid decision into at least three distinct milestones: pursuit, bid, and bid validation. A positive pursuit decision initiates preparation of the capture/opportunity plan. A positive bid decision initiates preparation of the proposal plan. A positive bid validation decision initiates the final proposal kickoff meeting and the full proposal preparation process.”
In all seriousness, I agree with this.
The first part of the Shipley Business Development Lifecycle.
Any stage gate process, such as the Shipley Business Development Lifecycle, includes decision criteria at each gate. If you determine early on that you would never win the opportunity, why waste resources on it?
And, in a true Shipley fashion the first two decisions, and possibly even the third, occur BEFORE the actual Request for Proposal is released.
But for some people, this is just plain wrong.
The “Bid Everything” method
For some people, the Shipley, SMA, Sant, and other practitioners are restrictive. Why work on an opportunity years before the RFP is released?
For these people, it makes more sense to concentrate your resources and evaluate the final RFP.
Not that much evaluation is needed, since every RFP falls into one of two categories.
We are the incumbent provider. If this is the case, then we HAVE to bid so that we don’t lose ground.
We are not the incumbent provider. If this is the case, then we HAVE to bid so that we gain ground.
It’s all pretty simple. And for those who claim that chasing lost causes lowers our probability of win, well, they’re just giving up too early.
Hey, our customer just released an RFP for a new system. I had no idea that they were going to release an RFP this year. Well, we’ve been the incumbent for years, and the people using our software seem to like us. I think. I don’t know the person who actually released the RFP, but my cousin’s brother-in-law knows him. As long as we come in with the lowest price, we’re certain to win this!
And it’s even better when your bid decision has full executive support…as in “I support the fact that you had better win this. And I will show up two hours before the submission time to help you by rewriting everything and changing the price.”
Luckily they’re not ALL like that…
Are you stretched?
But if you are stretched and need proposal help, book a free meeting with Bredemarket at https://bredemarket.com/mark/.
As I’ve said before, you should write a proposal that resonates with the people who read it. In marketing terms, you write for the key personas in your target audience.
But what if your target audience never reads your proposal?
“A new minister in Albania charged to handle public procurement will be impervious to bribes, threats, or attempts to curry favour. That is because Diella, as she is called, is an AI-generated bot.
“Prime Minister Edi Rama, who is about to begin his fourth term, said on Thursday that Diella, which means “sun” in Albanian, will manage and award all public tenders in which the government contracts private companies for various projects.”
Imagen 4.
The intent is to stop corruption from “gangs seeking to launder their money from trafficking drugs and weapons.”
When people evaluate proposals
But how savvy is Diella?
Let me provide a proposal evaluation example that has nothing to do with corruption, but illustrates why AI must be robust.
A couple of years before I became a proposal writer, I was a Request for Proposals (RFP) writer…sort of. A Moss Adams consultant and I assembled an RFP that required respondents to answer Yes or No to a checklist of questions.
When the consultant and I received the proposals, we selected two finalists…neither of whom responded “Yes” to every question like some submissions.
We figured that the ones who said “Yes” were just trying to get the maximum points, whether they could do the work or not.
Imagen 4.
The two finalists gave some thought to the requirements and raised legitimate concerns.
Can Diella detect corruption?
Hopefully Diella is too smart to be fooled by such shenanigans. But how can she keep the gangs out of Albania’s government procurements?
Imagen 4.
Certainly on one level Diella can conduct a Know Your Business check to ensure a bidder isn’t owned by a gang leader. But as we’ve seen before in Hungary, the beneficial owner may not be the legal owner. Can Diella detect that?
Add to this the need to detect whether the entity can actually do what it says it will do. While I appreciate that the removal of humans prevents a shady procurement official from favoring an unqualified bidder, at the same time you end up relying on a bot to evaluate the bidders’ claims to competency.
Of course this could all be a gimmick, and Diella will do nothing more than give the government the aura of scientific selection, while in reality the same procurement officers will do the same things, with the same results.
Biometric marketing leaders already know that I’ve talked about reader personas to death. But what about WRITER personas? And what happens when you try to address ALL the reader and writer personas?
Reader personas
While there are drawbacks to using personas, they are useful in both content marketing and proposal work when you want to tailor your words to resonate with particular types of readers (target audiences, or hungry people).
I still love my example from 2021 in which a mythical Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued by my hometown of Ontario, California for an Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS). The proposal manager had to bear the following target audiences (hungry people) in mind for different parts of the proposal.
The field investigators who run across biometric evidence at the scene of a crime, such as a knife with a fingerprint on it or a video feed showing someone breaking into a liquor store.
The examiners who look at crime scene evidence and use it to identify individuals.
The people who capture biometrics from arrested individuals at livescan stations.
The information technologies (IT) people who are responsible for ensuring that Ontario, California’s biometric data is sent to San Bernardino County, the state of California, perhaps other systems such as the Western Identification Network, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The purchasing agent who has to make sure that all of Ontario’s purchases comply with purchasing laws and regulations.
The privacy advocate who needs to ensure that the biometric data complies with state and national privacy laws.
The mayor (Paul Leon back in 2021, and still in 2025), who has to deal with angry citizens asking why their catalytic converters are being stolen from their vehicles, and demanding to know what the mayor is doing about it.
Probably a dozen other stakeholders that I haven’t talked about yet, but who are influenced by the city’s purchasing decision.
Writer personas
But who is actually writing the text to address these different types of readers?
Now in this case I’m not talking about archetypes (a topic in itself), but about the roles of the subject matter experts who write or help write the content.
I am currently working on some internal content for a Bredemarket biometric client. I can’t reveal what type of content, but it’s a variant of one of the 22 types of content I’ve previously addressed. A 23rd type, I guess.
But what would happen if someone in a role other than product marketing consultant wrote this content?
An engineer would emphasize different things. Maybe a focus on the APIs.
A finance manager would emphasize different things. Maybe an ROI focus.
A salesperson may focus on different things. Maybe qualification of a prospect. Or eventually conversion.
So the final content is not only shaped by the reader, but by the writer.
You can’t please everyone so you’ve got to please yourself
With all the different reader and writer personas, how should you respond?
Do all the things?
Perhaps you can address everyone in a 500 page proposal, but the internal content Bredemarket is creating is less than 10 pages long.
Which is possibly already too long for MY internal target audience.
So I will NOT create the internal content that addresses the needs of EVERY reader and writer persona.
Which is one truth about (reader) personas in general. If you need to address three personas, it’s more effective to create 3 separate pieces than a single one.
Which is what I’m doing in another project for this same Bredemarket biometric client, this one customer-facing.
And the content targeted to latent examiners won’t mention the needs of Paul Leon.
In which I address the marketing leader reader persona
So now I, the biometric product marketing expert writer persona, will re-address you, the biometric marketing leader reader persona.
You need content, or proposal content.
But maybe you’re not getting it because your existing staff is overwhelmed.
So you’re delaying content creation or proposal responses, or just plain not doing it. And letting opportunities slip through your fingers.
Normally these blog posts are addressed to Bredemarket’s PROSPECTS, the vendors who provide solutions that use biometrics or other technology. Such as identity proofing solutions.
But I’ve targeted this post for another audience, the organizations that BUY biometrics and technology solutions such as identity proofing solutions. Who knows? Perhaps they can use Bredemarket’s content-proposal-analysis services also. Later I will explain why you should use Bredemarket, and how you can use Bredemarket.
So if you are with an organization that SELLS identity proofing solutions, you can stop reading now. You don’t want to know what I am about to tell your prospects…or do you?
When you buy an identity proofing solution, you take on many responsibilities. While your vendor may be able to help, the ultimate responsibility remains with you.
Here are some questions you must answer:
What are your business goals for the project? Do you want to confirm 99.9% of all identities? Do you want to reduce fraudulent charges below $10 million? How will you measure this?
What are your technology goals for the project? What is your desired balance between false positives and false negatives? How will you measure this?
How will the project achieve legal compliance? What privacy requirements apply to your end users—even if they live outside your legal jurisdiction? Are you obtaining the required consents? Can you delete end user data upon request? Are you prepared if an Illinois lawyer sues you? Do you like prison food?
A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit found the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has not exercised sufficient oversight of its digital identity-proofing program…
As many of you know, the IRS’ identity proofing vendor is ID.me. The GAO didn’t find any fault with ID.me. And frankly, it couldn’t…because according to the GAO, the IRS’ management of ID.me was found to be deficient.
“IRS was unable to show it had measurable goals and objectives for the program. IRS receives performance data from the vendor but did not show it independently identified outcomes it is seeking. IRS also has not shown documented procedures to routinely evaluate credential service providers’ performance. Without stronger performance reviews, IRS is hindered in its ability to take corrective actions as needed.
“ID.me acknowledges that its identity-proofing process involves the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. However, IRS has not documented these uses in its AI inventory or taken steps to comply with its own AI oversight policies. Doing so would provide greater assurance that taxpayers’ rights are protected and that the technologies are accurate, reliable, effective, and transparent.”
You would think the IRS had a process for this…but apparently it doesn’t.
Dead on arrival (DOA).
But I’m not the IRS!
I’ll grant that you’re not the IRS. But is your identity proofing program management better…or worse?
Do you know what questions to ask?
Let Bredemarket ask you some questions. Perhaps these can help you create relevant external and internal content (I’ve created over 22 types of content), manage an RFP proposal process, or analyze your industry, company, or competitors.
“a word used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position”
I don’t know how weasels became the subject of a negative phrase like this, but here we are.
I learned the phrase “weasel word” when I started working in proposals. I’ve been writing proposals for nearly 15 years, and I’ve run into many cases where I don’t comply with the written word of a mandatory requirement, and I end up having to…evade or retreat.
“This rule ensures that Federal agencies have appropriate flexibility to implement the card-based enforcement provisions of the REAL ID regulations after the May 7, 2025, enforcement deadline by explicitly permitting agencies to implement these provisions in phases….The rule also requires agencies to coordinate their plans with DHS, make the plans publicly available, and achieve full enforcement by May 5, 2027.”
As I have ranted repeatedly, the REAL ID enforcement DEADLINE is May 7, 2025, but FULL enforcement will be achieved by May 5, 2027. There are enough weasel words to distract from the fact that full enforcement is not taking place on May 7, 2025.
“Flexibility,” “implement in phases”…I’m taking notes. The next time I respond to a DHS RFI, I may use some of these.
Because Bredemarket does respond to Requests for Information, Requests for Proposal, and similar documents. One of Bredemarket’s clients recently received an award, with possible lucrative add-on work in the future.
Does your identity/biometric or technology conpany want the government to give you money? I can help. Talk to me: https://bredemarket.com/cpa/
Bredemarket 