Request for proposal: written so the answers can be compared

A request for proposal is the document a buyer issues describing what they need, so that suppliers can propose how they would deliver it and at what price. Its purpose is not to collect brochures — it is to produce responses that can be placed side by side and scored, which is a property of how the document is written rather than of who answers it.

The usual failure is an RFP full of open questions. "Tell us about your approach" produces five essays that cannot be compared, and the evaluation then falls back to who wrote the nicest prose or who was already known to the panel.

What a request for proposal has to contain

• Background: what the organisation does and why this need exists now.
• Scope: what is in, and — more useful — what is explicitly out.
• Requirements, separated into mandatory and desirable, each written so compliance can be judged.
• The evaluation criteria and their weightings, stated before responses are received.
• Response format: sections, page limits, and where pricing goes.
• A pricing schedule that everyone completes in the same shape.
• Timetable: questions deadline, response deadline, decision date, start date.
• Contractual terms, or the ones that are non-negotiable.
• The single point of contact for questions.

Publishing the weightings is what makes the process defensible. Suppliers write to what is scored, and buyers who keep the criteria private end up scoring on things they never asked about — which is both unfair and, in regulated procurement, unlawful.

Questions that produce comparable answers

Ask for specifics with a shape: "Describe how you would migrate 40,000 records, listing each phase, its duration and the customer effort required" can be compared across five responses. "Describe your migration expertise" cannot.

Pricing needs the same treatment. Give a schedule with named line items, state the assumptions, and require any exclusions to be listed. Otherwise the cheapest proposal is simply the one that assumed the least, and that discovery comes after signature.

Handle clarification questions in writing, and send every answer to every bidder without naming who asked. It costs nothing, it prevents an advantage that is hard to unwind, and it usually improves the responses because the good questions inform everyone. Where the process needs to be formally defensible, an invitation to tender is the stricter form of the same exercise.

Running the evaluation

1. Score against the published criteria, individually, before any group discussion.
2. Record the reason for each score, not just the number.
3. Keep pricing sealed until the quality scores are complete where the process allows it.
4. Meet to moderate, and record where scores changed and why.
5. Give losing bidders honest feedback — it costs an hour and buys better responses next time.

An RFP is one document sent to many parties and answered against a deadline, with clarifications and addenda that must reach everyone. Ettex Docs keeps the issued version with its addenda and the question log attached, so what each supplier was told is the same and can be shown to have been the same. Evaluating the answers is still human work, and the weightings are still a decision the buyer has to make before the responses arrive.