Bob runs a company working on a very large and competitive government services bid. After combing through the numbers and settling in on a rather aggressive proposal, he feels good about winning the business and starting a relationship with the government facility being built in his area. He’s fine with breaking even on this deal, knowing there will be more business in the future. The bidding process requires physically sealed bids that are certified and opened at the same time, so he’s confident that his strategy won’t be known by the competition. Four weeks later, Bob is notified that the business was awarded to a competitor with a bid very similar to his own but lower by fifty bucks. Since it was a government bid, Bob goes out to the site to review the winning proposal and to learn from the near miss. The winning bid had identical language from his proposal, with only a few words and numbers changed here and there. How is that possible? Somebody would need to have seen the classified proposal.
