How to Make your RFP Effective

Writing a strong, clear RFP is a key driver to bring in excellent proposals that ultimately lead to strong vendor relationships. Great RFP leads to great supplier participation and better evaluation criteria. But while this is conceptually easy, putting it into practice requires work. Then, you’re in a position to evaluate an optimally broad pool of responses along the specific dimensions that matter to your company. So how do you develop a powerhouse team that consistently delivers great RFPs?

Incorporate these 5 Tips to build an effective skill for an RFP:

1. Be Straightforward and Expeditious

There’s nothing like an RFP peppered with jargon and buzzwords to muddle the message. And when it involves pages upon pages of seemingly irrelevant questions to be addressed, it might actually just put the vendor off. With this in mind, remember that it’s important for RFPs to be carefully crafted so that it draws quality proposals.

2. Focus on creating a substantial Gist Summary

Everyone knows that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. On the other hand, when your RFP is stacked along with dozens of others, you can basically expect the recipients of your RFPs to judge them within the first page. You need your prospective providers to be engaged to maximize the chances of their participating.

3. Have a full Proof Coverage

Write your request for proposal with the goal that none of your key questions will be left unanswered, i.e., make sure that you are able to narrow down your list of prospective providers based on responses to your questionnaire. When your team and stakeholders sit down to do the evaluation, you want them to be scoring targeted, well-defined answers provided by the vendors.

4. Clarify your objectives and evaluation criteria

The RFP is a step towards achieving a business goal — it must fulfill a purpose. Don’t lose sight of that while writing your RFP. Otherwise, the proposals you receive risk not meeting your objectives. Before you even begin drafting the request, make sure you conduct an internal discovery process to understand and differentiate between the needs and wants of the stakeholders.

5. Ask thoughtful, constructive questions

You want your RFP to draw actionable data from the responses of potential vendors. To achieve this, avoid stock questions unless the answers to them will provide meaningful insights in your evaluation process. Bear in mind that the goal is to generate responses that highlight a vendor’s capabilities as they specifically relate to your wants and requirements.