(b) DECIDE WHAT KIND OF PROPOSAL (S) YOU NEED FROM EACH OFFEROR

(1) Review FAR Requirements.

(i) Dual proposals are two separate and distinct proposals submitted by an offeror in response to a single solicitation. One of the proposals, the Annual-Buy Proposal, contains the offeror's approach and prices for satisfying the requirements under a conventional annual-buy contract containing priced options that the Government may or may not exercise. The other proposal, the Multi-year Proposal, contains the offeror's approach and prices for satisfying the requirements under a multi-year contract, in which the Government commits at award to buy the entire multi-year quantity. Dual proposals, then, are two different proposals to accomplish the same work. What differentiates them is the nature of the contract under which the work will be performed.

(ii) Dual proposals allow the Government to validate preliminary estimates of multi-year savings used to support initial multi-year findings. Because of the importance of this validation, care must be taken to ensure that the end item quantities and delivery schedules for both proposals are identical. The basis upon which original Government in-house estimates were prepared should also be identical to the proposal quantity and schedule baseline.

(iii) FAR 17.106-2 states that if a multi-year contract is being contemplated, the solicitation should call for dual proposals, unless you obtain high-level approval to do otherwise. The reason dual proposals are required and preferred is that they provide the best basis for comparing the cost of the annual-buy and multi-year approaches for the purposes of validating multi-year savings. Unless you can convince successive levels of management that you can perform a credible savings validation without obtaining an annual-buy proposal, you will need to require dual proposals.

(2) Understand the Relationship Between Deciding What Proposal(s) to Require and the Approach to Validating Multi-year Savings. Read Chapter 15 on the need for validating, planning and conducting multi-year savings. Note that the prevailing philosophy behind this guidance is that dual proposals should be obtained. Creating an annual-buy estimate in the absence of an annual-buy proposal is difficult to do and even more difficult to defend.