Why Set Yourself Up to Fail – Don’t Use Traditional Software Solution RFPs (Part 1)

这件作品中的意见是基于我过去的经验，成为涵盖了涵盖了电子采购，供应商管理，合同管理和支持上游采购功能的其他解决方案的点数人的积分人员 - 以及最近的对话目前涉及向同一客户群提出此类解决方案的经理和高管。

在Procuri.（自从收购Ariba), which is the firm where we had the best process (that I have ever worked with) for RFPs, “my” success rate at winning proposals was around 11%, if I recall correctly. (Please note that this was most decidedly a团队effort, heavily dependent on our regional sales VPs for ultimate success – but as the company’s proposal manager, I had a unique perspective on what came in and, obviously, what went out.) This success number didn’t include all RFP invitations that came our way, we actively filtered out those where we didn’t see a fit and/or where we had no prior contact with the prospective client.

是的那you read that right – solution providers don’t go after everything. Typical success ratios are often in the low single digit percentage, meaning that upward of 95% of RFPs can be a waste of scare resources. Even Procuri’s number still meant that we didn’t win close to 9 out of 10 proposals. Obviously this is why the sales funnel is so vital to suppliers – in some ways, it's a numbers game. Depending on the time of year and complexity, I pushed out between 8 and 12 completed proposals per month and even if not all were huge time drains, it is safe to say that each response costs the supplier thousands of dollars in direct expenses, allocated overhead, and substantially more if you also factor in opportunity costs.

Source: Dilbert.com

回到RFP过程 - 显然买家需要一种结构化的方式来评估解决方案，并且在花费很重要的情况下，我们不建议脱离它们，只是为了使他们更好。从供应商的角度来看 - 什么是“坏”RFP？什么让他们丢弃？如果您询问为什么买家应该关心响应，那就是对竞争性竞标情况的影响。显然假设响应来自能够满足需求的合格和有能力的供应商。

About the needs… this is where so many solution RFPs go off the rails. From my experience, it was (probably still is) rare to see a well-written RFP built on a clear use case, with sufficient data and other information to provide the solid assessment of needs that is needed to deliver a response that is reasonably close to what the client needs in order to make a down-selection, or even an award recommendation.

这就是为什么冷呼叫解决方案RFPS（来自先前未知的前景）不太可能引起大量关注的原因。坚定的是，他们所处的忙碌越好，更有可能杂草出去这样的RFPS - 以及你回来的反应非常好，从企业那里可以少得多（绝望）或尚未真正理解您的需求。换句话说，减少了您成功的第一轮结果的机会。

What you need is to build rapport with the solution provider – make them understand that you are serious, that you have firm plans to actually do something (suppliers hate it when buyers decide to do nothing), and that it’s not a foregone conclusion who the winner is. This process will also help you understand your specs better.

Check back later this morning for Part 2 of our series.