Due Diligence Questionnaire (DDQ)
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A Due Diligence Questionnaire (DDQ) is a structured pre-contract document issued by a client, JV partner, or acquiring entity requesting verified data on an AEC firm's financial health, bonding capacity, insurance limits, safety record, litigation history, and operational controls before work is awarded or a transaction closes.
Where DDQs show up in AEC and why they differ from RFQ packages
Most proposal teams first encounter DDQs on large construction manager at-risk or design-build pursuits, where owners need financial assurance before a GMP negotiation begins. But DDQs also surface in merger and acquisition due diligence, JV formation, prequalification for federal IDIQ vehicles, and surety-driven bonding reviews. The scope is narrower than an RFQ package and more legally specific: clients are asking for audited financials, Experience Modification Rates (EMRs), OSHA 300 logs, and certificates of insurance, not project narratives or team resumes. A DDQ submitted with an inflated EMR or outdated bonding letter is a disqualifying event, not a minor compliance miss.
The proposal team's actual role in a DDQ response
Marketing and BD rarely owns the DDQ outright; the information lives across finance, legal, HR, and risk management. What the proposal team typically owns is coordination: collecting verified data from four or five internal stakeholders under a tight deadline that often runs parallel to the technical proposal itself. That simultaneous pressure is where errors compound. Bonding capacity figures get pulled from last year's prequalification package without checking whether the surety updated the limit after a large project closed out. Insurance certificates get attached without confirming the named insured matches the contracting entity. The proposal coordinator's job is not to generate the answers but to confirm that every answer is current, consistent, and traceable to a primary source.
What experienced teams get wrong about DDQ reuse
The most common mistake is treating a DDQ response as a static document that can be copied from the last submission with minor edits. EMRs update annually in the first quarter; audited financials roll over on the fiscal year; bonding limits change when the backlog shifts. A response assembled from last cycle's files will often contain figures that contradict the current prequalification on file with the same client. Firms that maintain a structured record of when each DDQ data point was last verified, and by whom, catch these mismatches before submission rather than during a post-shortlist compliance review. Kantiv's pursuit intelligence structure ties DDQ data points to their source and last-confirmed date, so the proposal coordinator can see immediately which figures are stale before assembling the package.
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