It was liberating to meet our customers and partners in person. It was the most collaborative and heart-warming experience. National Harbour’s beautiful backdrop was a mecca for like-minded individuals at the forefront of document analysis and automation. It wasn’t all hard-hitting insights. We had an amazing time too. It was wonderful to network and share ideas and stories once again.
“I’ve been to Coachella, and I’ve been to the VisibleThread Summit. I can confirm… the hype is real. The Coachella of Bid and Proposal Conferences!”
Trevor Morgan, Senior Pricing Manager, AAR Government.
There is so much to process from the day and I walk away with a real sense of excitement. Excitement for growth.
- Growth in VisibleThread;
Putting the customer at the heart of everything we do and develop. Seeing our customers, not only motivated by our roadmap but impacting it. - Growth in the industry;
I listened to experts and industry leaders innovate about how they are pushing their teams and organizations to innovate. We speak often about the difficulties in the industry. However, our customers are the drivers in their organizations and they are refusing to stay still in stagnant processes. Proposal management is an economic engine and more and more organizations are starting to place it at the core of their growth. - Growth in Spirit;
It’s been a difficult and turbulent few years. However, I can’t help but feel inspired by the enthusiasm of the leaders I met last week. Burnout, losses, and misalignment are all common and unfortunate themes in this industry. However, last week I met leaders who thrive on personal growth. Leaders who are providing solutions and processes to their teams not only make them more successful but also make their team’s work-life better.
I’m now about to attempt what almost seems impossible. I’m going to articulate my top 3 take-aways.
Data is king. More information and intel will lead to more wins.
Automated bid and proposal software is driving collaboration and busting silos. Examples presented from Trevor Morgan, AAR Government, Brandon Costanzo, General Dynamics Information Technology, and Nicole Poppenberg, Eaton Mission Systems inspired the room. Leaders like these are curating data points to make their organizations more aware of their strengths. They are steering their organizations towards better decision-making.
Rick Harris, CEO of APMP connected with the audience on using data to drive your career. The notion that AI will replace humans is a myth. People will always be needed to organize the work and mine, analyze, and incorporate the data. “There is a wave of automation happening in the industry and you must learn to surf it. If you’re not thinking about automation, you’re behind.”
We must reward and invest in our employees if we want to retain them
“We are winning business professionals and the keyword is professional.”
Rick Harris CEO of APMP.
Proposal managers are the economic engine that should be embraced by organizations. Progressive organizations are shifting the narrative of this support function to an impact function. It was a common theme throughout the day, if you want to succeed, scale, or innovate you must invest. Invest in the process, in the toolkit, and the people.
Don’t just comply, we need to compel
Aiming for mediocracy isn’t something the audience last week believed in. All are striving to make a bigger impact.
“This is how we are beating the competition, this is how we are winning.”
Karnita McElveen, Vice President of Operations and PMO at AMG
Karnita believes VisibleThread provided her with a platform to improve efficiency and now she can use the space between lines to perform and be successful.
We surveyed the audience regarding analyzing win themes. 52% of organizations manually review the response documents and checks adherence to win themes by hand. While 29% don’t have a process for analyzing win themes at all. Is this an efficient use of time and thus setting ourselves up to be compelling or successful? VisibleThread customers are refusing to accept this as reality. They are driving innovation to remove these blocks to scale.
To conclude, I’m fired up. I’m looking forward to continuing developing on the insights from last week. I’m looking forward to releasing more content and results from the sessions. I’m extremely proud and thankful to all involved. I’d like to take the opportunity to thank our esteemed speakers and presenters. I’d like to thank all the VisibleThread employees for putting on an incredible show. And finally, I’d like to thank all those who attended and collaborated throughout the day.
Counting down to next year already #VTSummit2023
