As I write this, I'm taking a break from working on a response to a "Request for Proposal", commonly referred to as an RFP or sometimes an RFI. 150 pages of light reading, with probing questions like:
"What quality control processes have you implemented in order to mitigate the frequency and severity of errors in future releases of your software?"
Look, I've been on the other side of the table and I totally get it. This is going to be a very big project for the company in question, with a lot of internal stakeholders, and is not a decision to be made lightly. Making the wrong decision here would seriously compromise their ability to grow their business online. The first reaction when faced with an undertaking like this, is the get out the old fine-tooth comb and start combing.
Unfortunately, most of our prospective customers anchor this process with the corporate albatross of decision making: the RFP. Which is fine...if it was 1982.
The RFP was a necessary evil back in the dark ages, when corporations would only open the kimono when forced to do so through a bidding process. In fact, most RFP's were done as away to force vendors to blindly bid against each other as a way to get the best price. Somehow, the RFP has evolved into a magic document that too many companies think will actually help them make these business critical decisions.
Let's get real about this process for a minute:
- On the corporate side, hundreds of man-hours are spent preparing the RFP.
- Vendors are almost always just going through a copy-and-paste exercise when responding. And they will never - I repeat - never give out their best pricing in an RFP.
- The result is hundreds of pages of information that has to be processed by multiple people in order to be remotely useful.
I've seen this process in action as an eCommerce executive, and many times over in my current role. Not once have I ever seen anyone make an educated decision to select a vendor based on how they responded to an RFP. Even when RFP's are involved, the decisions are ultimately made by smart people who take the time to talk to each of vendors in detail, research the company and it's products, and more than often they rely on their most valuable asset: their gut.
I wish I had the reach to convince every corporate IT and Project Management office to just stop perpetuating this dinosaur of a process, but obviously I don't. The irony of it all, is that almost every company that drags us through this forced march is telling us that they have two major objectives in mind: increasing their time-to-market and return-on-investment. In both cases, they're starting out behind in the count.
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