If you are looking to write a Request for Proposal or RFP, our Request for Proposal Template provides a simple and effective guide to writing a winning RFP. It is designed to be quick and simple to follow - whilst also allowing the vendors to easily respond to your need.
What is a Request for Proposal Template?
Unless you work in procurement or have lots of experience running RFP processes, the idea of writing and issuing an RFP is going to be pretty daunting. An RFP can be as complicated or as short as you need it to be. All it really need do is to convey the issue that you want to solve and provide instructions for the bidders to respond to you. There is an art to it though - and some specific areas that need to be covered if you are going to look professional and if you are going to get back some great proposals. A Request for Proposal Template is a guide to ensure that you produce an excellent RFP and tick all the boxes that your internal team and external bidders will expect.
What does our Request for Proposal Template include?
Our RFP template provides the fundamental elements that vendors expect to see in an RFP document. These include the following areas:
Company Background - the opening section that should talk to your business and what you do.
The Requirement - the most important section where we articulate the current situation and what you are trying to solve by issuing this RFP and choosing a vendor.
What You Do Today - it is useful to have a section that talks about what is currently done today and where the current issue fits into the overall business process. It's common to include diagrams in this area.
Qualification Questions - every RFP has a list of questions that are attached to it. They usually relate to the elements that we think are needed in any new solution and it asks the vendors if they can meet the criteria. Our viewpoint is that this is where most RFPs go wrong.
Timescales - noting down the various steps that are involved in the RFP - for example, when the RFP is due to be completed and when the various decision gates will take place.
Scoring - a section that tells the vendors how we will score the RFP response and what will be important in our vendor decision.
Attachments - What attachments do we need to include for the vendors should complete (e.g. security questionnaires)?
References - how many reference customers do we need to hear about and what specifically should they look like?
Legal/Disclaimers - will our legal team need to add anything to the RFP?
What other assets might be useful?
Viewpoint Analysis runs RFP processes for companies of all shapes and sizes. As such, we have a variety of assets that we provide to help businesses to run a Request for Proposal quickly and effectively. Other assets that may be useful include:
RFI Template - for those who are maybe not at the RFP stage, our Request for Information Template might be more appropriate. Our customers use it as a quick way of doing an initial market assessment.
How to run a Rapid RFP - one of the elements that make Viewpoint Analysis unique is our focus on challenging the traditional RFP process and running super-quick RFP (and RFI) processes. Our whitepaper 'How to run a Rapid RFP' guides readers through a Rapid RFP approach.
Recommendations for vendors to review - our Software Guides - also known as Longlists - offer some suggested vendors that you might want to consider for your initial technology market assessment. We publish them regularly and they include a variety of different software categories, from finance software to HR software, and from data technology to customer experience platforms.
If you are soon to be issuing an RFP or RFI for a technology requirement and would like some advice, please feel free to contact us at contactus@viewpointanalysis.com and we would be happy to suggest an approach that might work for you.
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