Procurement
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Procurement, in the AEC context, is the formal process a public or private owner uses to select a design or construction firm and establish a contract for services.
How AEC Procurement Differs from Other Industries
Most industries buy on price. AEC public procurement is governed differently: the Brooks Act (1972) mandates qualifications-based selection (QBS) for federal architecture and engineering contracts, prohibiting price as a selection factor until after a firm is chosen. Most states have adopted parallel statutes. This means the competitive variable in a public pursuit is almost never fee; it is demonstrated qualifications, relevant experience, and perceived team capability. Private owners are not bound by QBS, which is why design-build and P3 procurement on the private side can include price proposals in the first round.
The Stages Where Firms Actually Win or Lose
A typical public procurement moves through a defined sequence: solicitation (RFQ or RFP published), submittal (SF-330 or proposal delivered), shortlist (usually three to five firms), interview, and selection. Most firms treat the proposal as the primary competitive event, but shortlist rates across the industry suggest the interview stage is where differentiated firms separate from qualified-but-generic competitors. The procurement calendar also matters: a two-week response window is common for task order work under an IDIQ, while a full design services RFP may allow 30 to 45 days. Knowing the difference changes how you staff the pursuit.
What Procurement Data Reveals Over Time
Every procurement your firm has touched is a data asset: the client's evaluation criteria, the scoring weights they published (and how those shifted across similar solicitations), the competitors who made the shortlist, and the debrief notes your BD director wrote after a loss. Few firms treat this systematically. The result is that institutional knowledge about how a specific agency evaluates proposals lives in one person's memory or a folder no one can find. Kantiv captures procurement history across pursuits so that when a client reissues a contract, your team starts with verified context about how that owner actually buys, not a best guess reconstructed from a three-year-old InDesign file.
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