Your Firm NEEDS a Customized Requests for Proposal
When you have successfully responded to several thousand requests for proposals, requests for quotes, or requests for information (herein “Solicitations”), you naturally become proficient in the RFP process and what is required (and what is not required) to develop a successful document that will garner attention and quality, compliant proposals in response to your request.
Unlike government-released RFPs which are required under federal and all state/public sector laws for the purchase of almost all products or services to be acquired, a Commercial RFP is an optional document released by a private firm while soliciting bids from other private firms. Once you have a Commercial RFP for one of your contracting efforts to secure numerous qualified, complete, and responsive bids, you will realize an RFP is something you should have developed and used long ago.
The Rainmaker Commercial RFP – includes RFIs, RFQs, RFSQs
- Identifies the minimal and/or mandatory experience and/or criteria to bid on YOUR RFP, e.g., licenses, certifications, insurance requirements, bonding requirements, years in business
- Eliminates bids from non-qualified firms
- Ensures that your review of proposal responses to your RFP are consistent and allows you to compare apples-to-apples
- Results in a greatly reduced review and contract award timeline
- Ensures that all companies responding to your RFP are provided with the information you need in a pre-determined format and in tables and forms that you require
- Allows your evaluators/reviewers of the bids to quickly search for and locate any element of information in the bid without an exhaustive search
- Includes a detailed RFP Response Checklist that catalogs the steps, information, and documents required to correctly respond to your RFP
- Using an RFP Response Checklist enables strategic sourcing and procurement managers to improve consistency, reduce risk, and organize the RFP process
- Results in the return of far more responses than a simple request for quote or bid without the defined criteria you need
- Professionalism matters – the more professional your RFP, the more responses you receive. If your RFP is sloppy or not understandable, a majority of companies will forego the opportunity and not respond to your request
- Allows you to develop a list of companies that do what you need and allows for the service, product, or solutions you are seeking to be compartmented by expertise and geographic location
- Need to locate a vendor with a specific license or certification or past performance in a particular city or state, the list becomes invaluable in soliciting services from vendors your firm has previously vetted as acceptable
- If done correctly, the management of the RFP process allows your firm to respond to all vendor/proposer questions and requests for information in a uniform and equitable manner
- Your Company RFP is a safeguard to ensure purchasing personnel from your firm are not locked into a limited selection of companies
- The Rainmaker-developed RFP creations and management processes ensure your firm of a steady flow of new vendors, new services (or solutions or products), new ideas, and perhaps industry insights and forecasts of which your firm may be unaware