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.