How Astra Labs Cut Proposal Time by 60% with Basis

Astra Labs is a 120-person defense technology firm based in Huntsville, Alabama. They specialize in electronic warfare systems and had been growing steadily, winning three to four prime contracts per year. But their pricing team of two was becoming a bottleneck. Every new bid meant two weeks of heads-down work in spreadsheets, and the team was starting to turn down opportunities they didn't have bandwidth to pursue.

When Astra's Director of Finance first evaluated Basis, her primary concern was migration complexity. Their existing rate structures were built across dozens of interconnected Excel files that had been refined over five years. She needed confidence that the transition wouldn't disrupt their active proposals. The Basis onboarding team worked with Astra to map their existing rate tables, indirect cost pools, and escalation factors into the platform over a two-week guided migration.

The impact became clear on their very next proposal. What had previously taken two full weeks of effort was completed in three days. The time savings came from three areas: rate lookups that previously required cross-referencing multiple files were now instant, cost narratives auto-populated from the estimate data, and version control meant the pricing lead could review changes without manually diffing spreadsheets.

Six months in, Astra has bid on 40% more opportunities than the same period the previous year. Their win rate has held steady, which means more contracts and more revenue, all without adding headcount to the pricing team. As their Director of Finance put it, the tool paid for itself on the second proposal.