June 15, 2020 – After a few decades of writing Request for Proposals (RFPs) for our employers, our own companies and our respective clients (lenders and vendors), we have published the ultimate guide to help you ensure success. It has been one of the hottest-topics prompting financial services professionals to reach out to us.
The Goal
The primary objective of issuing an RFP is simple –
To increase your odds of choosing a vendor wisely
- Tell the RFP participants who you are and the essentials of your business; Beyond what's already on your website and/or annual report
- Clearly communicate your business problem(s) and business impacts
- Be detailed and completely honest about the extent of your issues, history of addressing them, all related intel gathered, etc.
- Set the tone on what you expect to receive by way of vendor responses
Manage Expectations
It is very important to be highly transparent and firm in your expectations of respondents. Share the 'rules of the road.' Tell vendors to:
- Ensure timelines are met (or face disqualification)
- Articulate all responses in a clear and concise manner
More is NOT better! Unless you prevent it, you will be given dozens of process, procedure, workflow diagrams and other vendor documents
- Follow the well-designed process, which is fair and judicial so that no one vendor has an unfair advantage
You need to set the tone by adhering to these principles yourself. Avoid a double standard.
What to Expect From This Whitepaper
- Factors to consider when deciding to manage RFPs in-house, or to outsource
- Some options to consider
- The most common problems with the RFP process
- Specific RFP sections and proposed content to optimize it
Get meaningful and useful vendor responses
Need help? Reach out.
- We write them
- We QC/edit them
- We suggest which vendors to target (free service)
- We manage the entire end-to-end RFP process, or any component therein
Thanks for reading. Thanks for the collaboration Linda Verardi.
