At Atom CTO, we’ve written a fair few RFPs (Requests for Proposals) for clients. For us, having a clear and detailed RFP is the first step in the process of choosing the right tech development partner for your project.
In this article we outline four key points to keep in mind during the RFP process:
1. Know exactly what you want to achieve from your RFP
When writing an RFP, it is important to know exactly what the goal is of your technology build and what potential suppliers will be bidding on. Do you need design help as well as development? Do you need resource to cover user acceptance testing or do you have an internal team that can perform that work? Whether it is in the RFP or within the email that you send out, be sure to make it clear to the company bidding what it is you want to see in the proposal and what key points they must include in it for you to make an informed judgement on who to pick.
2. Think of it like building a house
If you were looking to build a house, you wouldn’t walk up to an architect and tell them to build you a house. They’d want to know how many bedrooms, bathrooms, the size of rooms, do you want rooms for children, a place for your elderly parents to live etc.
Building technology is much the same thing. Think of who your tech made for and convey the motivations behind building it – are you looking to reach a specific user group i.e. business, consumers or employees, what should be the main focus of the tech? Are you making money from the platform or are you trying to automate processes to save costs? How will building this technology add value to your business? Every good RFP begins with a robust and thorough Project Brief.
3. Go into as much detail as possible
If your RFP is vague or too open to interpretation, the responses you receive will differ greatly from the vision and end goal that you may have in mind. Ultimately you want to compare like with like and if you are not specific in your requirements then different bidders will have different notions of what you are trying to achieve. You want to provoke questions but you don’t want to generate uncertainty across vendors.
4. Use it as a conversation starter
Invite questions from suppliers, it’s vital to be as clear as possible. As soon as the questions start to come in, you’ll quickly understand whether you’re on track with the RFP. Any questions and their responses need to be shares equally across the bidders to to maintain fairness and transparency in the bidding process and ensure that every proposal can be compared like for like.
5. Choose carefully and check references!
When it comes to finding an IT development partner you need to think of them as a long term partner and that is a decision that shouldn’t be rushed. Be sure to compare tenders and the responses you receive, not only in terms of price but also on their past projects, the team they will use to deliver the work and always talk to their references to determine whether they will be a good fit for you. Ideally you should weigh the importance of the criteria you are using to select a partner and use the weighted score to compare them – the cheapest option may not be the best option for you overall.
At the end of the day, you want your IT development partner to be as in line with your ideas as possible in order to reach the desired end product, and this is best done through detailed and thorough RFPs and careful consideration of the proposals you receive.
6. Supplier chosen, what’s next?
Be sure that everyone understands the deliverables and timelines and how each party is going to communicate on a regular basis. For high vcalue projects, you might want to consult a lawyer to draw up an official contract. Get as much advice as you can beforehand and consider every eventuality: what happens if your supplier goes into administration halfway through the project? Due dilligence is an arduous process but you’ll be glad that you put in the work if things go wrong!
In the podcast below, CEO Bhairav Patel and Sam Noble discuss their thoughts on the RFP process:
Are you looking for new vendors and would like to take a project out for RFP but don’t know where to start? We can help you write a thorough product brief which will form the basis for your RFP. Drop us a message.