As a vendor or supplier of product or services, one of the biggest challenges in today’s marketplace is finding the time to respond to the constant stream of information requests arriving in your inbox each week. Your responses need to be professional, representative of your organization, accurate and detailed enough to ensure you are shortlisted for potential projectsThese information requests may include price and delivery inquiries, product specifications, tenders or quote requests, and-most time-consuming of all-the dreaded RFP response which is likely the most time consuming task out of all the inquiries presently filling up your inbox. RFPs continue to rise in popularity because many organizations now use them as a catch all tool for handling internal requirements submitted to the purchasing department.

When the purchasing team doesn’t receive a clear scope or specification, they often issue an RFP in hopes that a vendor will propose a solution. What is frequently overlooked by the Buyer is the amount of time and effort required for the Vendor to prepare a strong RFP response. You can’t blame them—purchasing teams have their own fires to put out—and most suppliers accept that responding to a request for proposal is simply a cost of doing business. Can you reduce the cost of responding to RFQs and RFPs? Yes and no, and we’ll address that shortly.

As a vendor you should keep track of your success rate and the approximate cost of preparing your response. If you are spending $10,000 to submit a response and being awarded a $150,000 contract then you can clearly justify your ROI. If you are spending the same $10,000 to be awarded a $15,000 contract then not so much unless it leads to further work or a long term relationship with a new client.

I am not sure most companies can answer how much it costs to deliver a RFP response or tender call however I do know that if they can find a way to do this quicker, save money and achieve better results then everyone would consider doing it. Having a clean versus cluttered response is a start and taking the time to have more than one person review the RFP request are two solid ways of improving your chances. While every RFP response requires a unique approach, many components can be standardized.

Your company references, testimonials, company bio, contact coordinates, past project successes, financials, safety and equipment lists can be prepared ahead of time. Other areas like your cover letter can also be saved in a format which allows you to tweak and go. All these pieces will help you get your responses out quicker and quicker means cheaper.

Since 2008, RFQPro has been helping both Buyers and Suppliers succeed with the request for quote and request for proposal process by providing web-based RFQ Software and editable procurement related word templates to help users expedite this process and improve departmental productivity. Why start from scratch? Visit the RFP Response Page for more details.