There are several challenges that you face while writing a RFP document. These can start with understanding the fineprint of the RFP document, filling up the sections without writing any fluff and ensuring all the mandatory items are filled and submitted by the submission date.
1. Understanding the fine-print of the RFP
The fine print of the RFP across different sectors can have requirements that the RFP response writer must understand clearly. For example in a technology RFP it can relate to the agreements that you have with other partners with whom you are responding, in a nursing response it can relate to the visa requirements and hundreds of other such examples. Federal government proposal writing services can bring in their own challenges.
The first step to mitigate this risk is to read the RFP document thoroughly and highlight the key issues where there are doubts. These doubts should be raised as questions no matter how naïve these can be and a clarification sought from the agency. This activity should be completed as soon as the RFP is received. This will help to get the responses faster and get a headstart on the RFP process.
2. Writing the response
Writing the response in itself can be a real challenge. Please ensure that you do not fill in fluff to make the RFP lengthier. While it is perfectly fine to take inputs from previous responses that have been won or adhere to high benchmarks, every response should be curated to make it customized for the current one. Try to plug in as much diagrams as possible because it gives better clarity to the evaluator. For example if you are describing a process, draw a figure and then define the process in steps rather than creating a big write-up. Understanding the question clearly and responding just as much is required is the key to a successful response. However the answer should not miss out on information as that can be a spoiler.
3. Collating the response
If there are multiple teams that are involved in responding to the RFP, the RFP Manager needs to collate the responses, stitch it right to ensure that all responses are in sync with the queries, check the response from all aspects of quality and correctness and make it ready for submission. The challenges that the writer faces here are the review comments that comes from the review team, getting those reviews updated and finally ensuring that all the parts of the response are in sync. It is essential to track the changes that are coming from the different teams and maintaining the right version tracker for every update.
4. Submission of the response
The response needs to be submitted within the deadline. Depending on the organization there are multiple ways in which a response can be submitted. In some cases the response has to be submitted as a hard copy so the printing and binding needs to be done atleast 2-3 days before the actual submission date. It is not a great idea to delay the printing and binding till the last moment. In some cases the submission needs to be done as an email attachment. This is fairly simple as it does not take much time apart from the natural time to ensure that all documents that need to be submitted are in place. Another method is submission of the response online. In this method, there is a step-by-step process that users need to follow to complete the submission. This process also takes a bit of time and it is better to complete the process atleast a day before the deadline. If the submission is delayed till the last date then there can be challenges such as server overload which may result in the site going down etc.
It is not too difficult for a professional writer working in a single domain but for professional RFP writing services providers, understanding and doing a new RFP every time can become a challenge. Identifying the specific challenges within the RFP not only allows to build a strategy but can also showcase past case studies where they have had particular success. For an organization it is important to churn out responses to maximum RFP’s because that increases the chance of winning more deals. Therefore RFP writers should grasp the RFP as fast as possible, identify the challenges and then get on with creating a stellar response.
There are companies that use their Intranet to have a structured repository of content that helps RFP writers to churn out the responses quickly. My personal favorite in this case is Sharepoint which I think is an excellent tool for structuring documents and then reusing it. Companies using such tools will find it much easier to respond to complex RFP’s and alleviate the challenges to a great deal. I have done answers to large scale software product RFP’s where there are 100’s of functional and technical line items to be responded. It reduces time to respond by almost 30-35% and also enhances the quality of the response to a great deal.
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