Blogs

Blogs

Death to the RFP (Part 2 of 2)

0
By Topics | Analytics

Business Forecasting Deal stack of booksThe BFD on RFPs

Software selection teams are prone to issuing lengthy requests for information (RFIs) or requests for proposals (RFPs), with page after page of check boxes for so-called requirements. Vendors stay in contention by dutifully checking off each box as either “available now,” “available in next release,” or “available with customization.” (Checking “not available” to anything risks disqualification from the selection process.)

Unfortunately these RFIs/RFPs, sometimes running 50 pages or more, can be focused on minute and largely irrelevant details, and used to simply screen out vendors that weren’t liked anyway. A savvy vendor that already has relationships in the company will write (or at least influence) the RFI/RFP content to its advantage. Also, knowledgeable vendors will often decline to participate in the RFI/RFP process, aware that the selection is already “fixed,” and that the costly effort of submitting a response would be a waste of time.

A lengthy and detailed RFI/RFP can also reveal the customer selection team’s lack of understanding of their own problems, or how to go about solving them. Listing something as a requirement, for example, “Software must include Neural Network (NN) models,” presupposes that the feature or capability is necessary to solve their business problem. But do they really know this? Have they actually utilized NN models and found them to be a huge benefit in forecasting their demand? Or is this just a buzzword or fad that the author of the RFI/RFP recently heard about?

Instead of mind-numbing lists of feature, function, and capability requirements, it may be more effective (and much less time consuming!) to solicit vendors with two simple and open-ended questions: What is your understanding of our business problem? and How do you propose to solve it? Encourage each vendor to makes its case, demonstrating their knowledge and creativity in addressing your particular issues. You can obtain answers to feature/function/capability questions (that were eliminated with the dropping of specific RFI/RFP requirements) as part of a further discovery process that includes product demonstration and proof-of-concept. Discussion of pricing, references, vendor viability, and other factors essential to the selection can follow.

[Source: The Business Forecasting Deal (Wiley, 2010), p. 154.]

May the RFP RIP

Tags Death to the RFP
Share

About Author

Mike Gilliland

Product Marketing Manager

Michael Gilliland is a longtime business forecasting practitioner and formerly a Product Marketing Manager for SAS Forecasting. He is on the Board of Directors of the International Institute of Forecasters, and is Associate Editor of their practitioner journal Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting. Mike is author of The Business Forecasting Deal (Wiley, 2010) and former editor of the free e-book Forecasting with SAS: Special Collection (SAS Press, 2020). He is principal editor of Business Forecasting: Practical Problems and Solutions (Wiley, 2015) and Business Forecasting: The Emerging Role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (Wiley, 2021). In 2017 Mike received the Institute of Business Forecasting's Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2021 his paper "FVA: A Reality Check on Forecasting Practices" was inducted into the Foresight Hall of Fame. Mike initiated The Business Forecasting Deal blog in 2009 to help expose the seamy underbelly of forecasting practice, and to provide practical solutions to its most vexing problems.

Comments are closed.

Back to Top