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Subject:RE: Help! Suddenly I'm a new RFP/proposal writer From:kcronin -at- daleen -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 13 Jun 2002 10:18:25 -0600
Ed asks:
>Question: in the experience of others, does the strictness of
>the written RFP vary with the number of zeroes in the contract
>amount? By the level of interested competitors? By private
>versus government purchaser?
In my experience, the bigger the company, the more hoops you have to jump
through, and the higher they hold those hoops.
RFPs from big companies (household-name big) tend to be VERY demanding,
with all kinds of anal rules and requirements, and often an incredibly
short turnaround time.
But even more anal (although sometimes a bit more reasonable with
deadlines) are RFPs from government agencies. Those make you dot your i's
and cross your t's in a big way. But you usually get a little more time to
complete your response, because NOTHING moves fast when it comes to
government.
Most RFPs are written (assembled, really) by committees, and it shows.
There are often redundancies, and frequent contradictions. Some consulting
firms write better RFPs, but those are almost always assembled from
boilerplate questions, some of which don't really fit the scenario for
which they're seeking proposals.
But yeah, the big guys are stricter. They make it tough on the people
bidding on their RFPs, sometimes simply doing so because they CAN.
-Keith Cronin
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