TABLE OF CONTENTS Reasonable men adapt themselves to their environment; unreasonable men try to adapt their environment to themselves. Thus all progress is the result of the efforts of unreasonable men.
George Bernard Shaw
Understand how to create a response to a request for proposal (RFP).
Learn how to function under deadline.
Be able to present and follow up as needed on an RFP.
A standing joke among the SC community iis that RFP actually stands for "really fast paperwork." An RFP, or its younger brother, the request for information (RFI), should be viewed as a two-edged sword. It is both an opportunity to win business and an opportunity to waste resources. In this chapter we will examine how to create an RFP, the go/no-go decision, how to handle deadlines, strategies for avoiding an RFP, completion of the RFP, presentation, and follow-up.
An RFP provides a company with the opportunity to describe its requirements with the expectation that one or more vendors can satisfy those requirements. Ideally, these requirements will be wrapped within a business case, some economic data, and an extensive business and technical background, plus all the necessary legalities and purchasing requirements.
As a general rule, the more business data contained within an RFP, the more thought has gone into its construction. The business-to-technical ratio (BTR) is an indicator of which department created the RFP. The lower the BTR (BTR < 1), the more likely the IT group created the RFP. An additional implication of...
