GatewayRedbirds.com

Whether you have to answer them or prepare them, they're one big PITA. I can really only speak to the "answer them" side, but many times they request a "yes" or "no" answer and allow for no elaboration. They want to try to compare vendors as "apples to apples" from a features perspective when that's usually not possible. They allow for no flexibility or open discussion (any questions asked of the procurer are answered for the whole group). It's entirely too formal for any meaningful understanding of business requirements. In the end, you're usually left having no clue whether you have a good or poor chance of winning the business, unlike a normal sales opportunity.

On the other end, and many times it's a foregone conclusion as to who the winner will be before any answers come back. So don't sweat it.

What's an RFP?

Request for proposal, I assume.

Is this like a business-ey, corporate thing?

I'm not sure if it's a businesy-ey or corporate- for us when we want to buy something big we have to have a fair bidding process. It prevents the gov't from creating a good ol' boys network I guess, and just going straight to your favorite vendor. The idea is that you document what you need precisely, and then companies put in bids. You select the winner based on quantitative data, based on replies to the RFP. In other words, the RFP says things like "We need to solve world hunger and you can only use a hammer and a tractor". Company X comes back and says "We can do that for $10 using just a hammer and a tractor", company Y says "We can do that for $15 using just a hammer and a tractor", and company Z says "we can do it for $5 but we have to use a hammer and a horse". Y is eliminated, because clearly X is the best solution. Now there is some wiggle room with X and Z - you could select Z and justify it by saying that the cost savings were so great and the use of a horse is not a big deal, or you could select X because Z wanted to a horse and that just isn't going to work.


I would doubt that real companies have to go through this though, but maybe they do.

jim wrote:I'm not sure if it's a businesy-ey or corporate- for us when we want to buy something big we have to have a fair bidding process. It prevents the gov't from creating a good ol' boys network I guess, and just going straight to your favorite vendor. The idea is that you document what you need precisely, and then companies put in bids. You select the winner based on quantitative data, based on replies to the RFP. In other words, the RFP says things like "We need to solve world hunger and you can only use a hammer and a tractor". Company X comes back and says "We can do that for $10 using just a hammer and a tractor", company Y says "We can do that for $15 using just a hammer and a tractor", and company Z says "we can do it for $5 but we have to use a hammer and a horse". Y is eliminated, because clearly X is the best solution. Now there is some wiggle room with X and Z - you could select Z and justify it by saying that the cost savings were so great and the use of a horse is not a big deal, or you could select X because Z wanted to a horse and that just isn't going to work.


I would doubt that real companies have to go through this though, but maybe they do.

RFPs are permeating the private workplace, because "procurement" (formerly known as purchasing) has far more input in the vendor selection process than used to be the case. I can kind of see it when purchasing IT systems as in the past, arrogant CIOs have made unilateral choices and once you make a decision on most software packages, you'd kind of stuck. It's like pouring wet cement over your business. So now they want to do things like weigh how much internal effort a project will take, ongoing maintenance costs, etc. Regardless, the same reason they're trying to quantify complex purchases is also the same reason why RFPs are dumb (they're complex).

Everything in the business world is dumb and complex and mind numbing, so I agree with you.

jim wrote:I'm not sure if it's a businesy-ey or corporate- for us when we want to buy something big we have to have a fair bidding process. It prevents the gov't from creating a good ol' boys network I guess, and just going straight to your favorite vendor. The idea is that you document what you need precisely, and then companies put in bids. You select the winner based on quantitative data, based on replies to the RFP. In other words, the RFP says things like "We need to solve world hunger and you can only use a hammer and a tractor". Company X comes back and says "We can do that for $10 using just a hammer and a tractor", company Y says "We can do that for $15 using just a hammer and a tractor", and company Z says "we can do it for $5 but we have to use a hammer and a horse". Y is eliminated, because clearly X is the best solution. Now there is some wiggle room with X and Z - you could select Z and justify it by saying that the cost savings were so great and the use of a horse is not a big deal, or you could select X because Z wanted to a horse and that just isn't going to work.


I would doubt that real companies have to go through this though, but maybe they do.

Sounds fair except when the RFP is slanted toward their preferred vendor. Bid/no bid decisions are often made by evaluating the requirements to see if they are tailored to allow them to pick who they wanted in the first - esp. In the wonderful world of gov't procurement. Your tax dollars at work.

I always thought it was request for pricing.

And the hard part is getting vendors to give consistent info.

Is x a flat free or an hourly fee? Is y needed each time we access this? Is z even needed?