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An RFP is a document that outlines the project, vision and goals for your business or organization. It includes information about who you are looking to hire and what the project will entail.
The “request for proposal example pdf” is a document that can be used to create a request for proposal (RFP). A RFP is a document that outlines the specifications, and requirements of the project.
A request for proposal, or RFP, is a written explanation of a company’s requirements that it issues in order to solicit bids from qualified suppliers and contractors. Your RFP should include a summary of the project and its purpose, a description of your company’s history and goal, and sections on the scope of work, budget, timeline, and selection criteria for the project. To get started, create your own RFP or use our free RFP template.
Request for Proposal (RFP) Template for Free
Your RFP should be as detailed as possible to guarantee that your suppliers bring you their finest quality proposals and that you are considering all providers equitably. This is why we’ve produced a request for proposal template that covers the critical information suppliers and contractors need to generate a quotation, which you can download for free and edit for future projects at your company.
Download our Request for Proposal (RFP) Template for Free in Word or Google Doc.
Following these steps will allow you to generate your own RFP document:
1. Give an overview of your project
The summary of your project should be one of the first parts of your RFP paper. It doesn’t have to be too lengthy, but it does need to include enough information for a vendor to swiftly decide whether or not they can help. It should outline the project and identify the project’s goal or intended result.
In an RFP, below are some examples of project overview statements:
- ABC Company, one of Northern Virginia’s top federal contractors, is requesting bid ideas for a thorough website overhaul to assist achieve traffic objectives.
- XYZ Real Estate is one of New York City’s fastest-growing residential real estate developers. In order to organize and design three new development projects, we are seeking competitive proposals for a community planning consultant.
- Solar Inc., a forward-thinking solar panel manufacturer and distributor, is seeking contractors to handle our social media accounts in order to strengthen our customer interactions.
- Main Construction Corp., a mid-sized general contracting firm on the West Coast, is looking for bids to manage our employee benefits program and offer a single point of contact for administering programs and educating our workers on their benefits.
Finally, the what and why of the request for proposal should be included in your project overview statement. It should also include information about your company’s name, product or service, size, and key markets.
2. Include Company Background & Contact Information
More information about your firm may be found in the company background section. It should contain a variety of identifying information about your firm as well as more comprehensive information about how your company fits into the industry. The following information should be provided in a request for proposal’s business background section:
- Name of the business
- Physical location
- Number to call
- Contact information through email
- Website
- Describe the items or services that your firm offers.
- Information about what makes your business unique
- Details about your desired consumer types or target market
- The size of the company or its stage of development
- Members of your executive team who are critical to your success
Pro tip: You can find yourself on the opposite side of the procurement process, having to respond to an RFP with a proposal. Our step-by-step guide to writing a business proposal will teach you all you need to know to submit a competitive proposal.
3. Define the Work Scope Expected
The scope of work elaborates on your project overview summary statement. When defining the scope of work, it’s a good idea to focus on the intended goal rather than the processes required to get there. This gives providers that use cutting-edge technology or creative techniques more leeway in presenting solutions to your problems.
A sample RFP scope of work with deliverables is shown below:
Your proposal for the website redesign and management scope of work should contain the following deliverables:
- Evaluation/audit of the current website (one prior to redesign then quarterly)
- The creation of brand guidelines
- All website material is written by a copywriter (14 pages)
- Backend coding using third-party program integration (or plugin).
- The consumer journey is being mapped out.
- SEO implementation and strategy
When creating the deliverables, be as specific as possible about what you intend to accomplish. It also makes it simpler for suppliers to evaluate fair pricing by quantifying deliveries when feasible. It’s possible that you’ll need to enlist the expertise of internal or external specialists to define your project and its deliverables.
This section is also a great area to outline your project’s broad aims as well as the present difficulties it’s being utilized to address. Defining desired objectives and difficulties helps suppliers to include solutions in their RFP submissions that you may not have been aware of or considered, particularly if they’ve handled comparable issues for previous customers.
In an RFP, here’s an example of how to communicate project objectives and challenges:
We want to boost website traffic by 40% in the next three years, with ecommerce accounting for the bulk of our income. Getting new clients to our website is one of our biggest problems. Fresh customers now account for just 5% of our overall ecommerce sales, which we want to increase to 20% via SEO best practices and new website content.
This part, like the scope of work and deliverables section, should be precise and provide measurable data if feasible. Vendors utilize this area to identify methods to set themselves apart from other bidders by highlighting the solutions they provide.
4. Explain why the project budget is unknown or clarify it.
The request for proposal document should provide an estimate of intended expenditure. Vendors will be able to choose if submitting an RFP is worth their time—or yours—even if it’s a range. If you are unable to provide any form of project budget estimate, you should explain why.
The most typical reason for not being able to offer a budget range is because a funding request has not been accepted, either from a government agency or from another department within an organization. Another explanation may be that the issuing organization has no clue how to price the project or has financial flexibility and would want to explore a variety of options.
Another area of the request for proposal where you may need to confer with professionals before issuing is the project budget. A budget that is too little may only get bids from the lowest-quality suppliers, while a budget that is too excessive may lead you to overpay.
You may even categorize budgets for different phases of the project and create longer budget statements to be transparent about how much you’ll (or can) spend. “We intend to spend $25,000-$37,000 overall on the project but will consider paying more for a high-quality vendor,” and “We will not spend more than $40,000 on the project,” are two examples of extended budget statements.
5. Determine the length of time you’ll need to complete your project.
Including a targeted project timeframe or schedule helps suppliers in both planning and estimating. You may set tight deadlines, flexible deadlines, or segmented deadlines for different phases of the project.
In order to accurately define your request for proposal’s project timeline section, you may need to contact with in-house or outside specialists who know how long each of a project’s deliverables would take. It must be reasonable in order to attract suppliers with extensive expertise and a great track record.
In an RFP, below are some examples of project timing statements:
- We anticipate the new website to be available no later than March 8, 2022, regardless of when each of the deliverables is completed.
- Flexible deadlines: We’d want to launch the new website sometime in February or March of 2022. We’re willing to go a little later if it implies higher-quality material and/or greater site functioning.
- Timelines: We anticipate contractors to follow the following project schedule:
- No later than December 1, 2021, for the first website audit report.
- Proposal for web page design and grand guidelines is due on January 1, 2022.
- By March 1, 2022, all front-end web page construction and site content authoring will be completed.
- By April 1, 2022, all back-end storage and connections will be complete.
- By June 1, 2022, all user testing on the website will be completed.
- By July 1st, 2022, all media material will have been included.
- No later than September 30, 2022, the website will be operational.
- By September 30, 2022, the SEO configuration will be complete.
When managing a project or working with an outside contractor on one, your sales customer relationship management (CRM) system may be utilized to keep track of project progress and ensure that it stays on track. For example, Bitrix24’s CRM includes free project management tools that enable you to examine the progress of a project using a variety of displays, such as Gantt charts and Kanban views.
6. Specify the requirements for your submission
Vendor submission criteria are another key item to add when creating a request for proposal template for your organization. This is where you tell suppliers and contractors what you want them to submit in their RFPs. In general, you want them to submit basic information such as their company’s past, expertise, and maybe a response to particular questions you asked in the RFP.
You can also ask them to send you samples of their work or portfolios of work related to your project, as well as references from previous clients. Request suggestions for the project scope, information about who will manage the project, and how they will achieve your schedules, as well as their bid pricing, to have a better idea of how they will deliver on the project.
This section should include any special formatting criteria you have for RFP submissions, such as document type or page limit. This can also include information about how you want pricing bids, timelines, and methodology to be presented in the document. When it comes to bid pricing, for example, you may require an hourly rate, a monthly fee, or the total project cost in your RFP submission.
Some RFP issuers wish to maintain proposal submissions consistent in order to compare suppliers on an apples-to-apples basis. This may be accomplished by creating a single RFP template that all suppliers must use when submitting their proposals.
The submission requirements section may also be utilized to distinguish between vendor characteristics or expertise that are required vs. those that are desirable. For example, as a must-have, you may issue an RFP requiring suppliers to be within 100 miles of your organization and to have executed at least three identical projects, while experience with businesses in your sector is a nice-to-have (or preferred) quality.
7. Describe the criteria for selection.
The criteria for selecting a winner and awarding a contract should be mentioned in your request for proposal document. For assessing and comparing the suggestions, we advocate adopting an objective approach, such as a scoring mechanism.
In the case of a procurement disagreement, using objective criteria is also beneficial. You may use the point system as a rationale for selection if a vendor thinks they were unjustly rejected.
Here’s an example of a point-based RFP criterion:
Each proposal will be graded using a point system that considers the following factors:
- 30 points for previous job experience
- Price of the bid: 25 points
- 25 points for getting to the end of the project.
- Vendor personnel experience/qualifications: 15 points
- 5 points for following the proposal submission guidelines.
- 100 points total
8. Establish Your RFP Procurement Schedule Expectations
This portion of the request for proposal document is usually found at the beginning or at the very end. It should include a schedule for when bids are due, how long question submissions are open, dates for various phases of the procurement process (such as vendor interviews or counter-proposals), and a projected date for when a contractor will be chosen.
Requests of a Different Nature
There are alternative requests that may be made if you aren’t ready to release a complete RFP but still want information about a possible project. These aid your company in obtaining information on pricing estimates or how a vendor would approach a certain issue.
- Request for quotation (RFQ): This is a form that is used to get an estimate of how much a project or scope of work will cost. You have a general idea of what the job is and why you need it, but no idea how to budget for it.
- Request for information (RFI): This form is used to see whether suppliers have solutions to an issue you’re facing. In general, you understand the issue, but you’re looking at several approaches that suppliers may take to solve it.
Before issuing a formal request for proposal, the information obtained via an RFQ or RFI helps define your project’s scope of work, timing, and budget as a fact-finding exercise. You may utilize the lower and upper end of those ranges for your RFP project budget if you issue an RFQ and get a range of cost estimates for a project.
How CRMs Help Manage the RFP Process & Templates
CRM (customer relationship management) software is a tool that may aid in the RFP process. HubSpot, for example, offers free RFP templates for creating and submitting bids. In the CRM’s document sharing system, these templates may be shared among team members for collaboration.
HubSpot allows you to share and monitor documents (Source: HubSpot)
Using a CRM for RFP management and sales activities is an important part of building a strong sales operation because it gives your team the tools they need to succeed. Our full guide to sales management has further ideas on training and motivating sales staff, as well as strategizing on how to attain peak sales performance.
Developing your sales plan to define goals within your strategies is more productive with access to templates to utilize as a reference point, similar to utilizing an RFP template to simplify your sales operations. You’ll find a step-by-step explanation for building a sales plan as well as a free sales plan template to download and alter in our how-to guide for establishing a sales plan.
Conclusion
A request for proposal is an excellent approach to build a list of possible suppliers or contractors to help your company finish a project. You may get all the information you need to choose the best contractor to work with by following the proper issuing and submission procedure. Using an uniform RFP template makes it simple to quickly develop and submit requests, analyze offers objectively, and award contracts.
The “rfp template word” is a document that can be used to create an RFP. It includes 8 steps that detail the process of creating an RFP. The document also includes a free template.
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