Proposal Type & Writing Process

                                                    Proposal Type & Writing Process:

Proposal document that shows a willingness to products/services for a price submitted by Vendor based on client need. 

TYPES:

Solicited: Client gives RFP and vendor responds. In that, there would be client problems, technical details, financial details or time period for solution expected to be completed.

Unsolicited: You may not get RFP or RFI based on the study, research, and experience. We may know a particular organisation may have a particular type of requirement and based on information gathered, we go and give unsolicited proposals.

Ex: Advertisements can be called as unsolicited proposals

Internal and External Proposals:

Internal: Submitted within an organisation- by same business units. 

External: Most of them are externals which don't belong to our company.

# Proposal preparation process #  ( Major overhead)- Spend time

Bid Decision: Team decides whether to submit a proposal for the particular requirement

Once the organisation decided to bid for the project, internal team is formed or proposal team is formed with internal team identified.

This team identifies to assemble all parts of the proposals so there would be a technical team providing all information for technical bid. 
The commercial team that give information on cost bid.
The senior manager who gives information on past projects. 

We get resumes of key people from " Human Resources" and we may get a quotation or costing for training from training department and so on...

# Project is never prepared by one individual- If the proposal is into crores- nearly 8-10 SMEs work on the proposal.


to be continued...

VENDORS RESPONSE TO RFP

                                       VENDORS RESPONSE TO RFP


Willingness to provide the products/services:

The Vendor may request for more information, ask questions, get some reply to have more clarity of the scope and so on...

Vendors may request a formal meeting or opportunity to make presentation to the management of the client organisation and finally, the vendor requested to deliver the proposal

Vendor submits the proposal consisting

1) Covering/ Transmittal letter
2) Executive summary
3) Cost bid
4) Technical bid
5) Supplementary information 
Ex: About management, company profile, resumes of key members of the team, and in few cases vendor may also be requested to deposit money which is an indication of the vendors commercial interest in the particular proposal.

You can search in google for ' Sample RFIs, RFPs, proposal rating scheme, sample schedule

WHAT AN RFP ASK FOR PROPOSAL?

My apologies to all my mavens for the delay in writing this piece This section basically talks about what a request for proposal (RFP) should chiefly include and maximize its selling criteria . Here are a few aspects which are considered to be important while submitting an RFP.


                                   WHAT AN RFP ASK FOR PROPOSAL?

• A proposal includes covering letter, executive summary, technical bid and cost bid (Many times the proposal will also have more information about the vendors, their management achievements and highlights of their business.

• Sometimes Vendors ask for financial details, like balance sheet of 3 years, the qualifications of vendor team members, so these additional details can be included as well.

• An RFP may ask  a list of previous clients with contact information and correct details should be given as there is a greater possibility of the references being double checked.

• An RFP may ask for a description of the proposed development process or the complete execution process of the project. This varies from companies to comapnies

• The RFP will definitely ask for delivery methods, where and how the delivery would be made? How it will be packaged? How it will  be packaged? Would it be insured? And so on. 

                                          PROPOSAL RATING SCHEME

Most RFPs disclose the rating scheme for the proposals. Even before the vendor submits the proposal they would like to inform the vendor on how the proposal would be rated. This rating scheme helps in maintaining transparency in decision making. It will also serve as guideline for vendors so that they can analyze the proposal before submitting it. This enables them to improvise and deliver the maximum possible value.

The rating scheme allocates points to the following:

1) Technical solution
2) The experience
3) Vendor's ability to find the project and the commercial details of cost bid and so on

The RFP rating scheme sets a  "Total overall" points required for the vendor's proposal to be considered.

The total overall points that is below certain expected points will not be considered.

WHAT SHOULD RFP CONTAIN?

                                          WHAT SHOULD RFP CONTAIN?

 It should contain a description of the requirement or problem desired outcome or hint  solution the client is looking out.

 It should contain well-defined scope of work for the vendor

                                          RFP may give number of points

• Assets the vendor should have 
• Quality criteria that can lead to selection of the vendor ( for selection and sign off) 
• The quality of services that will lead to sign off the project. 
• Many times RFP contains proposed RFP stages, so many times projects of longer duration are broken down into multiple stages so that the RFP could identify the stages and the ‘milestones’ when the stages are expected to be completed. 
• For technically complex projects an RFP may even mention the expected qualification of the team member or human resource that would be allocated to the project.

A number of times RFP gives the proposed schedule for bidding process so it may say that on day one RFP was floated and by Day 5 organisation expects a reply from the vendor saying that whether they are interested in that particular bid or not. If yes, they may be asked to give more information or the client is willing to give more information to the questions from the vendors so that there could be a date identified for that.There could be date identified for accepting the proposals, studying the proposals and even giving the opportunity to the vendors to give proposal presentation.

All the process involved in bidding process may be identified with a specific date.

This helps just not the client but vendor to plan likewise.

RFP may give an idea about proposed payment details whether the client is going to give advance money. What percentage of money will be paid to what milestone or what delivery and so on?

An RFP may give the hint of proposed tenders and conditions of the actual contract.

Ex: If there is a delay from the vendor side, will there be a penalty? If yes, what would be the percentage of penalty and how would it be deducted?

The RFP may talk about the key risks involved in the project and how the client expects vendors to mitigate those risks and so on...

RFP-Request for Proposal

                                                         RFP-Request for Proposal

Written Document-specific information about the organisation and the services/products the business is in.

RFP asks specific information from the suppliers or the requirements, they must meet to get hold of orders from the client.

Important is RFP is given after RFI. We have to take a note that RFI is not asked again and again for ex: A client may ask for RFI in a particular year and after collecting RFI and floating a tender giving RFP and finalising the proposal. The coming year, the client may not go for RFI again. They may go for RFP directly next year.

For every proposal, there will be a request for proposal, however, there will bot be a different RFI for every proposal.The reason being RFI is only asking for information.It doesn't ask for price & quotation for a specific scope.

                                 REASONS TO WRITE A FORMAL REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

To provide a fair and equal opportunity to the vendor for providing services.

Common RFP ensures that the information is getting to everyone the same to assess.

Most of the companies and government sectors are going for transparency and visibility.

RFP is given to identify and select qualified organisations capable of supporting high levels of service client needs in the most effective and administratively efficient manner possible.

To select stable, organised and efficient organisations interested in developing long-term relationships with the client.

To award opportunities to the most capable and qualified organisation.

To choose organisations whose capabilities and experience can support demands and can grow as the clients needs everyone in future.

                                                                           to be continued...

                        KNOCK OUT THE TENDER COMPETITION

     

       I can be reached through email: Joyjoshi@gmail.com

I was pondering why many companies fail to snap up projects even after having the right talent and expertise. I realized few companies lost because of proper ‘proposal submissions’. During the course of my IT journey, I have had the opportunity to interact with many IT champs and I felt that there was some lag how people look at proposal writings. I just want to write down my mentation so that it may help few folks. The ones who are experienced in proposals, Kindly feel free to add your valuable thoughts and comments.

I never thought that I had to wear multiple hats in my career and I am grateful and thankful to my bosses who had given me the opportunity. I met few champs in sales and proposal writings and their inputs at the right time helped the company many times. I am glad that I did work with them as well got to learn from the sales crew so many things.

Let me get into the proposal writing:

RFP: Ask the vendor for the specific scope of work and commercials.

RFI: Limited to information about Vendor Company and the services/products. Here we gather information from various supplies, taking company details, financial history, and services & products.

Reasons to write a formal request of information:

Examine availability of goods and services in the market

Gauge potential suppliers and inform suppliers of procurement process

Collect information about rates, which helps the organization to finalize budgets for the scope of work that they want to get done.

RFI: Purpose of RFI – Why is it circulated to vendors?

Typically it contains information about client organization

What business are they in?

Since how long are they in that particular business?

What are their future plans?

RFI gives problem or requirement statement- stating this is what we are looking for.

RFI will have expected qualifications; vendors may have in order to fulfill the client’s requirements.

RFI may give an idea for the subsequent bidding process and talks about the positive scope of work. It may include the time frame of the bidding process. Many times it is not disclosed but few times the client may choose to do so.

RFI may also list the resources required for an organization to complete the project (It could include HR, assets like machinery, hardware, software and so on)

RFI may also have conditions which could be the terms included in the future RFP’s

RFI may say that we are interested in vendors who would be able to deliver this material at so and so location or we are interested in the vendor who would be able to deliver this material and accept the payment after 25 calendar days or 40 working days.

RFI will have template/form for vendors to fill up.

There will be a ‘Space’ after every question for the vendors to fill up the answers. This will help the client to compare the information received from all vendors to take the right decision.

                      WHAT WILL BE THE VENDOR RESPONSE TO THE RFI?

Vendor expresses interest in the business, which means vendor shows willing to provide the services/products organization needs.

Vendors show willing to respond to RFP when he gets it and states that they are interested and ready to provide the client services required and look forward to receiving the RFP.

RFI also contain the information the client asked for i.e., company information of the vendors, information about the product services, delivery models (engagement model) and rates and prices.