In this blog I will not delve into the process of responding, team structure and other such process oriented details. This blog is mostly for high level tips on winning a rfp based upon our experience. Also as the title says it is focused on resource augmentation rfp’s that are primarily floated by federal government departments, different states and counties in the US.
Winning a resource augmentation RFP depends on some of the following key factors-
1. The credibility of the company that includes the years the company has been in the business, its revenue, past experience and references
2. The next set of criteria are the processes by which you will fulfill the resourcing, background checks, company management, ensuring quality of deliverables and other such qualitative data.
Given these parameters we need to ensure that we provide the best possible result when we are responding to the RFP.
The response structure of the RFP is mostly defined in the requirements document. A typical response may include different Exhibits such as Marketing strategy, experience, company information and addendums.
The challenge here is to address each of them to the best of our ability. For example if there is a query on Order Processing try and depict it with a diagram such as the one shown below:
Similarly if there is a query on the different marketing channels that the company will use if it is selected as a Master Contractor, you can use something like this.
The key to winning any augmentation RFP will be to use the information in the repository and include new innovative diagrams to make the information more relevant. This creates a good chance to make a winning proposal. In my experience, for any RFP response the crux is to keep the response simple, use already available data as much as possible because that takes out the time required for repetitive work and focus on creating some value additions to the response.
The rates that are provided for the different categories of resources should also be in-line with what is offered by the competition. You can consider the rates provided in other winning RFP’s. Another strategy that we follow when we are working on a response is to identify the key factors that has helped us win a response by going through some of the earlier responses.
If you are single-handedly handling the RFP try to get some help from a team member on the basic research and structuring of the document. This gives a lot of space to ‘clean-up’ the document, make changes as required and give a final shape to the document. A large RFP is difficult to be handled single-handedly and it will definitely reduce the quality level of the final document. If you have a designer working with you spend sometime on creating the final pdf with Adobe Indesign as it shapes up the document very well. If the evaluator sees a very impressive document it creates a great first impression about the company.
In some RFP documents (I was just going thru a winning RFP response) there are queries such as “ Automated systems utilized to facilitate fulfillment of services”, “ Proposed solution to track and report on temporary staffing performance” , “Description of measurement of customer satisfaction”, “invoicing process” etc. These types of queries though simple should be thought through and responded in a meaningful manner.
Another important point that needs to be adhered to is to provide clear answers. Do not plug unnecessary information that is not relevant to the query asked. In most cases that does not help and it can as well be put into the appendix section if there is an option.
This more or less sums up some of the tips that can help to win a proposal. However there are multiple factors like existing relationship, company credibility, management bandwidth etc. that can decide large accounts. As I have always believed keep the faith, do good work and take the plunge and you can very well be on the winning side.
We are working with different companies across segments to help them respond to their RFP’s effectively thereby increasing their chances of winning manifold. If you are looking for a professionally written RFP response drop in a line at info@intelligentq.co.in
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