RFP Handling in an IT CompanyA case of Tata Consultancy Services

Nirav Khandedia 12030242017Neha Patnayak 12030242016Rajabala Gnanasamy 12030242020Neha Chauhan 12030242018Akhil Mohammad 12030242019

Disclaimer

•This is all fake data, nothing to do with TCS or any other IT company actually. Please don’t relate with actual.

Questions

•Select IT company of your choice and answer below questions in its context.

▫ How does an IT Company receive the RFP?▫ How does an IT Company send the RFP?

Which are the teams involved? Formal process generally being followed for the response. How Go - No Go Decisions are taken? How estimations are prepared?

▫ How much percentage of business is based on RFP selected IT Company?

RFP Handling

•The company selected for the study of RFP handling process is Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

How company receives an RFP?

TCS receives the RFP through various channels/ways

• Sales Team:▫ TCS has its sales office in India at Mumbai. ▫ TCS has APAC region sales head office in Singapore

• RFP monitoring tools▫ TCS uses various RFP monitoring tools and has dedicated team

to keep eye on them. The tools are Onvia, FindRFP, FedOpps.com

• RFP Database▫ TCS also refers to standard third party databases which holds

information about recent RFPs released by various companies.

How company receives an RFP?

• RFP Postings on Professional Organization Sites ▫ TCS keeps track of various professional organisational sites to

know about the latest RFP postings. ▫ A team at TCS is monitoring this using few automated tools as

well.

• Local or State Government Purchasing Sites

• Google alerts:▫ TCS subscribes to a few Google alerts on standard feeds

providing various RFP and its updates. E.g. RBI feeds

How company responds to RFP?

• We have captured details on RFP response process on below points:

▫ Which are the teams involved?▫ Formal process generally being followed for the response.▫ How Go - No Go Decisions are taken?▫ How estimations are prepared?

How company responds to RFP?

• The following different teams take part while responding to RFP.

▫ Sales Team Sales team may bring RFP through WIN BEFORE RFP way. RFP hunters team which keep track of RFPs through various

channels described earlier.

▫ Domain experts Domain experts or consultants who understand the client (RFP

Initiator) business and can better understand the clients business requirements.

▫ Technical/Middleware/Infra experts & BU/Delivery heads These experts and heads help understanding the requirements in

terms of complexity of implementation and efforts.

How company responds to RFP?

▫ Legal advisors to understand legal bindings and complexity. Legal advisors help in understanding the legal bindings and

complexity of laws applicable to client country.

▫ Proposal writers Experts in writing the proposal

▫ Market Experts Experts who can dig out the market and identify what exactly is the

customers business motive behind raising RFP? Why RFP was raised? Was the same business solution being provided by other vendors ? Why the vendor is being switched?

How company responds to RFP?• Below are the steps in RFP Response process:

▫ Understanding the RFP and decomposing it in terms of Business requirements/Technical requirements/Infra requirements and Legal Bindings.

▫ Understanding the customers business or involving Domain experts who had deep insight of customer’s business.

▫ Identifying whether the client and its business is permitted to deal with, as per TCS values and policy.

▫ Identifying if this opportunity received through RFP is worth winning?

▫ Identifying if this opportunity received through RFP is already WON by others before RFP Release.

How company responds to RFP?

▫ Understanding the legal complexity of RFP, checking if TCS can take those legal buildings as per its policy

▫ Developing winning strategies▫ Understanding the proposal process▫ Making estimates with involvement of business, technical and

infra experts. ▫ Pricing the offerings▫ Writing a proposal section

How company responds to RFP?• Answers to the below Questions are sought and evaluated

to take the GO / NO-GO decision:▫ What do you have to win in this contract? What is the benefit

to business in terms of Credibility improvement, Prestige improvement?

▫ Is it a new market area being explored? How about the Financial benefits?

▫ Should you use specialists or consultants? How many of each? Do we have that strength available? Can we make it available otherwise?

▫ Is the contract worth winning?▫ Can this new contract spoil the relationship with another

existing client?▫ Can this new contract put a negative mark on your reputation

in the business world and society?

How company responds to RFP?• Below are the steps while doing estimation as part of

response to RFP:

• Decide on estimation approach, identify which or which all would be required.• Analogy-based estimation• WBS-based (bottom up) estimation• Parametric models• Size-based estimation models• Group estimation• Mechanical combination• Judgmental combination

How company responds to RFP?• As part of estimation, major chunk of work is on the blow lines.

• Identifying the items of work.• Fixing a unit for each item of work.• Calculating the quantity of work.• Calculating the rate for each item of work.

The rate is the cost of resources involved per unit of work. The resources are usually: Man-hours. Overheads. Profit margin.

The overheads involve:▫ The establishment charges.▫ Depreciation of systems and infrastructure.▫ Licenses, permits, taxes.

• Fine tuning the final cost.

Percent of business through RFPs• TCS has around 10% of business through RFPs.

Thank you