Making The Bid- No Bid Decision on RFP’s
If you have a Request for Proposal that has been issued from a potential or current client company or a government agency, then, first, you have a bid/no bid decision to make.
To make this decision you should carefully read the RFP in its entirety. If any information is unclear, usually, the RFP will give information on how to and with whom to communicate with. Guidelines are usually in place concerning people who can be contacted, and the methods of communications, frequently these days it is by email only and the questions and answers are sent to everyone who received the RFP.
After reading the RFP, put the information into four categories: 1.) Administrative/logistical/ contact information, 2.) Legal clauses and specifications that will govern the contract, 3.) Requirements for solution development, scope of work, technical expertise, etc., and 4.) Format guidelines.
Now, make a list of all the contradictions, missing elements, inexplicable jargon, and unclear statements that you need to raise questions about at a bidder’s conference or email to the contact person.
Once you have a thorough understanding of the RFP, you can determine the answers to the following questions:
- What is the real purpose of the RFP?
- What is the scope and magnitude of the requirements?
- What confidence do you have that you or your organization can fulfill all the requirements?
Determining the purpose of the buyer (such as, ‘Are they just trying to get information?’) and the strength of your competition might indicate that winning the contract would not be possible or not be in the best interest of your business. You want to focus any efforts as time consuming as writing a proposal only on the RFPs which present opportunities for quality contracts.
Outside the government, there is no standard for RFPs. They may be clearly understandable documents or poorly written and difficult to understand in terms of the actual requirements and scope.
For example, an RFP might go out for a one-hour training video. What are the real requirements you are being asked to fulfill? Do they want you to just film an existing training session as it is being presented, so all you are doing is shooting the film and doing a little editing? Do they want you to work on the development of the training, the scripting, filming high-quality with full crew, edit, add animations or interactive exercises, and do they want it connected to a Learning Management System?
You must make sure that you understand the true scope of the requirements before you make your decision to put in the effort of writing a proposal.
Start work on a requirements checklist at this time, and continue updating through the communications and bidders’ meeting. For now, this checklist will give you the scope and magnitude of the project. When your proposal is complete, the checklist can be used to verify that you have covered all the requirements and did not miss anything in calculating your costs.
Once you understand the scope and magnitude of the requirements, you may find that winning the contract might not be cost productive. Do you have the capabilities (staff, resources, and finances) to fulfill the requirements, or would you need to take into account sub-contractors, new equipment, additional inventory, or even a loan for upfront expenses? Would you need to form an alliance with a competitor or complimentary company to fulfill all the requirements.
If two or more companies or sub-contractors are involved, then the process of preparing the proposal becomes more complex; exactly what items of fulfillment each of the companies or sub-contractors will be responsible for must be addressed.
Making a chart of your analysis can help you make your bid/no bid decision. Look at the chart below: A ‘yes’ should be checked in a large percentage of the boxes.
At this point, you will have determined whether or not the purpose of the RFP is valid, know the scope and magnitude of what you would be bidding on, and have determined whether you could fulfill the requirements. Now you only have to answer one question: Is this job worth the time and effort required to write and excellent proposal?
By: Vickie Adair
ERP FUD - Just say NO to RFP’s | Clients First US | Texas (Arlington)
In other words, the only RFPs sellers will accept are ones you should not make. One of the ways to avoid the winner’s curse is to bid more conservatively when there are more bidders. Thomas Nagle and Reed Holden explain why in their seminal book, The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: … It is important to have some contact with the economic buyer, that is, the person who can actually make the decision to hire you, rather than just the procurement department.
Wikis and RFPs « Vendorprisey
The only value of RFPs have are to cover the decision-makers butt in the case of disaster and line to pockets of the big SIs who get paid handsomely to drag the process along and have no incentive to make more efficient. … you’ve gotten your RFP together, can I recommend posting it to the RFP Database as a good place to garner competitive bids for your project? And if I’ve misconstrued your post and you’re looking for projects to bid on, it’s a great place for that too!
Advice You: Making The Bid No Bid Decision on RFP s
make. At this point you will have determined whether or not the purpose of the RFP is valid know the scope and magnitude of what you would be bidding on and have determined whether you could fulfill the requirements.
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