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MHE - the print2image2Internet consultants © 2008 William J. ‘Bill’ McCalpinwww.mhe-consulting.com

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The Vendors Speak: How NOT to Write Your RFP

William J. ‘Bill’ McCalpin

MHE


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About MHE

• MHE is the “print2image2Internet” consulting firm

• MHE provides a wide range of analysis, research, product management, and electronic print software support services

• See http://www.mhe-consulting.com


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About the Speaker• William J. ‘Bill’ McCalpin is a principal at MHE• Mr. McCalpin has held a number of technical

and management roles in the industry, including VP of Product Marketing at Xenos and General Manager of Xplor International

• Mr. McCalpin holds professional certifications in electronic printing and imaging from AIIM, CompTIA, and Xplor


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Agenda

• The RFP response process at the vendor

• The cost of responding

• What the RFP is trying to achieve

• Things the RFP writer ought to do…and ought NOT to do

• …and occasional samples from real RFPs


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Real RFP - #1

Question 10.1.2: If the answer to Question 10.1.2 was "Yes", please define the roles/responsibilities of all involved parties.

Uh, this IS question 10.1.2!


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The RFP Response Process


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Tormenting the Vendor


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Tormenting the Vendor

• Indeed, for most vendors, going through the RFP process is just like ‘jumping through hoops’

• …and it’s less fun than the Vendor Challenge Course…


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The Vendor’s Process

• Small and even mid-sized companies may not have a person dedicated to doing RFPs

• Usually, no one person at the Vendor can answer all questions anyway

• One VP of Sales said, “We get various people from different departments into one room – and rip each other’s hair out.”


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The Vendor’s Process• Some vendors have the salespersons do the

response – bad• Some vendors have a tech writer do the response –

bad• Some vendors have a presales engineer do the

response – bad• What you really want is a technical person who

has a business background, who really understands the industry, who is articulate, and who doesn’t have any current assignments – good luck!


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Real RFP - #2

Is your software fully “Year 2000” compliant?” – asked in an RFI dated December 5, 2006.

We don’t know, we’ve been afraid to run it since then…


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The Cost of Responding


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The Vendor’s Cost

• Over a 6-month period, for one vendor, I averaged 22.6 hours for each response

• Double that to account for the vendor’s employees’ time – about 50 hours.

• If the vendor does 50 responses a year – that’s 2,500 hours! At $125/hour, this is over $300k per year!


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The Vendor’s Cost

• For this reason, vendors will do a great deal to avoid doing RFPs

• You should use this fact to your benefit – convince the vendor to give you something in return for foregoing the RFP process

• But if you have to do the RFP, at least do it right!


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Real RFP - #3

“Aside from the two corporate letter systems, XYZ supports a number of desperate letter processes utilizing SAS and Document Science’s XICS for document composition…”

Gee, I hope they meant “disparate”…


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What the RFP is Trying to Achieve


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RFP Goals

• The RFP is a formal process to solicit information from vendors, typically to assess competing bids

• Goals:– Product or service information related to your

application

– Vendor recommendation(s)

– Vendor suggested alternatives

– Comparable Pricing


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RFP Goals

• “Product or service information related to your application”…so don’t ask questions not related to your application

• “Vendor recommendation(s)”…give the vendor a chance to explain their solution – i.e., don’t just ask Yes/No questions


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RFP Goals

• “Vendor suggested alternatives”…always leave yourself open to other alternatives that you hadn’t considered

• “Comparable Pricing”… you want to compare pricing between vendors…but vendors don’t always price the way you think, so again, be flexible


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Real RFP - #4

“Is it should be possible to extend tables dynamically”

Sounds like the same guy who writes those assembly instructions in Japan…


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What the RFP Writer Should (and Should NOT) Do!


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Provide a Copy of your RFP in Word

• Most RFP responses need a lot of content from the RFP: questions, tables, etc.

• Giving the RFP on paper requires the vendor to retype all that, introducing errors (even OCR does)

• A PDF file of scanned pages is NOT an “electronic” copy!!!


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DON’T USE EXCEL

• For any RFP that requires any sort of extensive text answers, Excel has a flaw

• Any cell that has more than 1,024 characters loses the ability to text wrap – the vendor has to hard code line breaks

• The vendor has difficulties adding value, such footnotes and other Word features

• Other services such as spellcheck are a problem


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Be Explicit About Who You Are

• …and what you want…• Tell the vendor what business you are in• Tell the vendor what application you want the

vendor to address• Tell the vendor generally what you want to vendor

to bid on• E.g., Licensed software versus outsourcing


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Put All Instructions in ONE Place

• Most RFPs have instructions on how to respond (good)

• However, if these instructions are in multiple places, the odds are good that they will conflict

• Make it hard for multiple authors to contradict each other

• Oh, and tell the vendors if you want the response on paper or electronic(!)


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Example

• (page 5) “The proposal must include all the information defined below and be organized as follows:”– 11 sections with many questions follow

• (page 14) “The proposal must include all of the information set forth in this section and be organized as set forth in this section. ”– A description of 8 sections follows, which irregularly

overlap the 11 sections above


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Don’t Give Impossible Instructions

• Have someone do a reality check on your instructions

• Example: in Hawaii, overnight services don’t deliver until 5:00 p.m. – why set a 10:30 a.m. deadline?

• “How fast does your product run? Will it do our nightly print volume within our processing window?”


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More Impossible Instructions• “Bids must be submitted in duplicate, enclosed in

plain sealed envelopes and deposited in the Cream Tenders Box, located in the Security Lobby of the Ground Floor, Block A, (at an address outside the country) no later than 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday May 2, 200X.”

PS, the delivery agent should be wearing sunglasses, a trench coat, and have a rose in his lapel.


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Discourteous Instructions

• Don’t release RFPs with very short deadlines

• Don’t tell the vendor to have their legal department review in detail your standard contract and conditions, noting all exceptions

• “Please send us copies of all your documentation” – NO!


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More Discourteous Instructions

• “Hard copy: 15 copies of the proposal and 2 CDs will be sent to the following mailing addresses:”

• “An authorized executive of the vendor’s firm must sign all proposals, responses and quotations in blue ink.”


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Real RFP - #5

• From the Department of Redundancy Department:

• “15.1 Please provide any additional information that your Company believes would be relevant to our decision. Please keep such additional information concise.

• 15.2 Please attach any additional information that your Company believes would be relevant to our decision. Please keep such additional information concise.”


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Write the RFP in Standard English

• In this global age, you may be sending RFPs to vendors who do not have English as their first language

• Worse, you may send the RFP to the UK, where “English” takes on a whole new meaning (and vice versa)

• Have someone read the RFP with foreign vendors in mind

• Example: “Please describe your turnover”


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Have a Tech Writer Review

• Spellcheck does not catch all spelling errors• Word 2003 displays the revisions and comments

by default – Oops!• Automatic numbering in Word is an accident

waiting to happen• Example: One RFP had automatic numbering for

table entries – only they hard-coded some entries, causing duplicates


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Be Careful Cutting and Pasting• Example: Entire worksheet of questions relating to

licensed software – for an RFP for outsourcing• Example: “Vendor must provide adequate hand

washing stations for employees” – for an RFP for outsourced bill printing

• Example: This is a grate weigh to propogate speeling and grammer erors

• This is also how you insert contradictory instructions to the vendors


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Bad Cut and Paste Example

• RFP: “Is your product a non-standard solution that requires its own support personnel to maintain the product? If yes, please explain in the text field provided below. ”


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• Vendor question: “Please provide additional information for what you are considering included for the terms:

• ‘Your product’ (what functionality is desired/required)

• ‘Non-standard solution’ (what would be considered standard?)

• ‘Its own support personnel’ • ‘Maintain the product’ ”


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• RFP issuer response: “We decline to further define terms at this stage ”

• This RFP was for a service, not licensed software!

• Because of cut-and-paste, the RFP admin didn’t know what their own question meant!


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“Ask a Stupid Question…”

• Example: “Have you ever been sued? Please describe in detail.”

• Example: “Are there any known bugs in the current version? What are they?” Uh, no, the software is perfect?

• Example: “How long does it take to become a proficient administrator/vendor coordinator?” Is there any answer other than “no time at all”???


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Real RFP - #6

“Does your product ask for a login and assword?”

Yes, uh, No, oh, nevermind…


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Be Flexible in Your Questions

• While it is good to tell the vendor what you are expecting in the RFP, be aware that the vendor may have a totally different approach

• Example: It makes perfect sense to ask the vendor to answer the questions as is, but also ask for alternative solutions

• Especially when you are replacing existing software products, don’t assume that the new products will work exactly the same way


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Never ask Yes/No Questions Except…

• …when the answer can’t possibly be something other than “Yes” or “No”

• Good Example: “Does your client software run on Windows XP?”

• Bad Example: “Are your internal data objects stored as XML?”

• Always add a “Comment” column to the table with the “Yes” and “No” columns


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Summary-1• Provide a copy of your RFP in Word to the

vendors• DON’T USE EXCEL if you are expecting a

response with large amounts of text• Be explicit about who you are and what you are

looking for• Put all instructions on how to respond in ONE

place• Don’t give instructions that are hard to obey


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Summary-2

• Write the RFP in standard, non-jargon English• Have a tech writer review it, but not write it• Don’t cut and paste anything you haven’t read• Ask only questions that are likely to get an

intelligent answer• Be flexible in your questions• Never ask Yes/No questions without the option to

comment


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Conclusions


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Real RFP - #7

“Do you provide support for all US states, terrorities and possesion using…?”

Yikes, call Homeland Security! Or maybe an exorcist!!!


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Conclusions

• The RFP process can be expensive and painful for both company and vendors

• A good RFP greatly simplifies the winnowing down of vendors

• A poor RFP causes more work for everyone – including YOU.


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Contact Information

William J. ‘Bill’ McCalpin MIT, LIT, CDIA, EDP

PrincipalMHE

1400 Cheyenne Dr.Richardson, Texas 75080-3921 USA

(972) 231-3660 (v) (972) 690-4521 (f)[email protected]

www.mhe-consulting.com

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