Patent ID: 7506001

Claim:
A method for managing proposal related tasks and proposal related data for an entity using an enterprise proposal management system, the proposal related tasks including one or more tasks for managing a proposal lifecycle, the proposal related data including data stored in one or more data repositories derived from one or more past, present, or anticipated proposal opportunities, the method comprising: receiving information describing a proposal opportunity at a graphical user interface coupled to the enterprise proposal management system; developing business strategies for the proposal opportunity using the data stored in the data repositories, wherein developing the business strategies includes generating a win score to provide information about whether the entity should pursue the proposal opportunity, wherein the generating the win score includes: identifying at least one issue for the proposal opportunity; assigning a weight to the at least one issue; identifying an ability of at least one competitor to respond to the issue; identifying an ability of the entity to respond to the issue; identifying at least one technique to differentiate the entity's ability to respond to the issue from the competitor's ability to respond to the issue; and generating the win score using a weighted result derived from relative competitive positions for the competitor and the entity in relation to the issue; automatically updating the data stored in the data repositories to include information relating to the proposal opportunity, wherein automatically updating the data repositories includes: storing the information describing the proposal opportunity in the data repositories as a data abstraction for the proposal opportunity; and associating the data abstraction for the proposal opportunity with the win score generated for the proposal opportunity; managing development of a proposal if the entity pursues the proposal opportunity, wherein managing development of the proposal includes using the data stored in the data repositories to develop the proposal; and controlling delivery of the proposal if the entity wins the proposal opportunity, wherein controlling delivery of the proposal includes interacting with the data stored in the data repositories to coordinate one or more areas for the entity's delivery of the proposal, wherein the data stored in the data repositories is automatically updated to include information relating to the entity's development and/or delivery of the proposal.