Raft, a defense technology company focused on delivering modern software solutions for the Department of Defense, had built its proposal operation around the traditional Shipley process. A full proposal team managed color reviews, compliance matrices, and solution outlines, all following the established playbook. But as the company grew, the team recognized that the process was slow and resource-intensive, and it was not meaningfully improving their probability of winning.

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Compliance matrices were assembled by hand. Solution architects built outlines manually, then compared them against RFP requirements in a separate step. Reviews required multiple cycles of coordination across contributors. Every stage consumed time and attention that could have gone toward strengthening the solution itself.

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The team had explored other tools. They used Visible Thread for requirements analysis and occasionally relied on ChatGPT for drafting. But neither tool could operate within the company’s GCC High government tenant, which was a hard requirement. And neither offered the kind of deep workflow integration the proposal team needed to move faster without adding risk.

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We decided that the process was slow, archaic, and it really wasn’t increasing our chance of winning work.

Daniel Laubach

VP of Growth, Raft

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Security and Compliance

For Raft, operating within a GCC High government tenant was non-negotiable. The other tools the team had evaluated could not meet this requirement. GovEagle’s ability to operate within their security environment removed the most significant barrier to adoption.

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Workflow Integration

Beyond compliance, what set GovEagle apart was how deeply it integrated into the tools the team already used. The Word, Excel, and PowerPoint add-ins meant proposal contributors could work within their existing environment rather than switching between applications. Combined with the ability to search directly into Raft’s SharePoint data repository, GovEagle fit into the team’s workflow rather than requiring them to build a new one.

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Combining all the features of Word, Excel, being able to look into our data repository, and now the add-in for PowerPoint. Comparison-wise, there’s no comparison.

Daniel Laubach

VP of Growth, Raft

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A Completely Different Proposal Cycle

GovEagle did not just speed up individual tasks. It changed how Raft’s team works through every stage of a proposal. Solution architects now use GovEagle to build initial outlines, then compare and refine them against the solicitation. The compliance matrix, which was previously assembled manually, is now generated automatically, with Dan noting he rarely needs to add anything to it. And rather than following a traditional color review process, the team uses GovEagle at each step of their review cycle.

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The cumulative effect is significant. The team estimates they spend at least 50% less time on each stage of the proposal process. The timeline itself has not changed dramatically, but the effort required at every step has been cut in half or more, freeing the team to focus on strengthening the solution itself rather than manual assembly.

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New Markets, New Opportunities

With the time and effort savings, Raft has been able to pursue opportunities that would have previously been deprioritized due to bandwidth. Cold start responses, where the company has no prior relationship with the agency, are now feasible. Dan described a recent example where the team responded to a VA opportunity that they would not have pursued if the process had been entirely manual. GovEagle handled the initial heavy lifting, producing a 90% solution that the team refined and submitted. That kind of new-market entry was simply not possible before.

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An Unexpected Win: Graphics

One of the most surprising benefits has come from a capability Raft did not originally seek out. The team now uses GovEagle to create SV-1 diagrams, OV-1 views, and Gantt charts, all of which are critical to defense proposals. The graphics are high quality and fast to produce, which has changed how the team approaches visual elements in their submissions.

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That’s probably the most surprising benefit because we didn’t get GovEagle for that. We got it for proposal management, and the graphics have been a game changer.

Daniel Laubach

VP of Growth, Raft

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For Raft, GovEagle has transformed how the company approaches proposals. The team spends at least 50% less effort per proposal stage, has reimagined every step from outlining to compliance to review, and has opened the door to new agency markets that were previously out of reach due to bandwidth constraints. But the impact goes beyond efficiency. By integrating directly into Raft’s secure environment and existing workflows, GovEagle gave the team a genuine competitive advantage, one that Dan considers essential to staying competitive in defense contracting.