When you use RFP automation software, your team can spend more time on strategy, creativity and quality control – and increase your win rate.
A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a document issued by a government or organization‘s procurement department. It invites proposals from contractors to bid on a project.
The RFP process allows governments to compare and contrast the businesses that would like to carry out the work. It allows them to assess business according to their capabilities and value for money. For businesses that survive and thrive on winning bids, a strong RFP process is crucial.
The RFP outlines the scope of work, the budget available, the skills needed, compliance criteria, and any special requirements. Businesses interested in winning the contract and carrying out the work put together a detailed response outlining their capabilities.
Government contracting is a highly profitable space, accounting for $682 billion of the US federal budget in 2020
Taxpayers pay for government RFPs through public funding. Therefore, RFP responses provide an extra layer of transparency. This can also mean extra compliance obligations and bureaucracy.
“Government contracting is a highly profitable space, accounting for $682 billion of the US federal budget in 2020. As such, the competition for bids can be intense, and companies who want to win big are investing in RFP software to give themselves an edge.”
Streamlining the RFP process
For proposal teams, the process of putting a proposal together can be long-winded and onerous. Teams that manually assemble their responses find the process time-consuming and repetitive.
Some teams communicate by email, others via Slack. Some save their work to a shared drive, while others share it through Google Docs. It becomes impossible to practice good version control.
“One of the primary benefits of RFP automation software is that you can use it to build a robust proposal quickly while minimizing risk and increasing compliance.”
Too often, proposals involve copying and pasting information from past RFPs, Word and Excel files, PDFs and marketing documents. This introduces the possibility of inaccurate or outdated information finding its way into your new proposal and costing you the win.
One of the primary benefits of RFP automation software is that you can use it to build a robust proposal quickly while minimizing risk and increasing compliance.
What is RFP automation software?
Are your response times too slow? Do you have a complex process? Are your colleagues getting frustrated or are you losing ground to competitors? If the answer is yes, then it might be time to invest in RFP automation software.
“RFP software automates key parts of the proposals process”
In the past, the key to winning more bids was the three Ps: People, Process, and Paperwork. But today we can replace Paperwork with Platform. When you have the right people and process in place, RFP automation can become the engine that drives the bid management process.
RFP software automates key parts of the proposals process including:
- shredding the document,
- creating compliance matrices,
- and ensuring compliance by spotting gaps.
A proposals solution can also identify and shred critical FAR/DFAR and flow-down clauses, as well as extracting acronym definitions and occurrences.
They allow your bid teams to save templates so you can save time by pulling generic material easily into your new proposal. This means you can save your creative energy for creating content that is specific to the current bid. The results of automating these aspects of the processes are:
- Faster bid/ no bid decisions freeing up time
- Less ambiguity and confusion
- Reduced ‘scope creep’
- Fewer errors and inaccuracies making their way to the final document
- Alignment across the proposals team on win themes
The Impact of RFP Automation
The impact of these improvements can be a better win rate and more contracts for your business.
RFP automation involves using software tools to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks in the RFP response process. By automating these tasks, RFP software can help reduce the workload and stress on team members. This frees up their time for more creative and strategic activities and helps to avoid burnout.
Additionally, RFP software can help ensure consistency and accuracy across the proposal. This reduces the likelihood of errors that can lead to additional work and frustration for team members. Overall, the use of RFP software for RFP automation can help improve the RFP response process, reduce burnout, and increase the probability of winning the business.
What are the benefits of using RFP automation software?
The benefits of using RFP automation software lie in the ability to maximize efficiency while minimizing risk. They can streamline the process, and provide a central place where all teams working together on the bid can effectively collaborate.
- Efficiency and productivity. Improved productivity allows for a calmer process throughout the RFP lifecycle. The early days of a proposal are a scramble for information and the final hours before submitting are chaotic.
- Automating the ‘grunt work’. You have more headspace to focus on the aspects of your process that will move the dial for your business. In the early days, you can spend this time on ideas and strategy. While you can spend those final hours on quality control to ensure you haven’t missed any critical areas of compliance.
- Time is money: You can use the time saved to submit more proposals. If you bid on 50 RFPs each year, automation might give you the time to bid on ten additional contracts. That could translate into two or three more wins each year – potentially worth millions of dollars.
- Collaboration and teamwork: An RFP can require input from your sales, marketing, product, finance, legal team and more. When the process is manual, this can result in a siloed approach where each team has no insight into how their colleagues in other departments are working.
This can create an inconsistent, incoherent response with different grammar, tenses, and technical terminology used. RFP software helps teams work together to find a single tone of voice. It identifies and helps address any inconsistencies, unifying your proposal to increase the potential of winning the bid.
Organizations that understand the benefits of RFP automation and invest in it gain a competitive advantage over those that do not.
How RFP software enhances proposal management
RFP automation software like VT Docs works with your existing IT infrastructure. It can help organizations respond to RFPs and ensure they make quick bid/no bid decisions.
It allows bid teams to shred a document in minutes rather than hours and get to work on a bid. RFP automation software minimizes risk by creating compliance and responsibility matrices which ensure you don’t miss sensitive clauses.
VT Docs compares documents and catches errors while VT Writer ensures a consistent tone and readability score. This is crucial on a document that numerous individuals and departments have fed into.
“Combined, VisibleThread’s clients saw an increase in revenue of $438,849,249, from improving their proposal win rate”
A survey of VisibleThread’s clients carried out in 2019 suggested that VT Docs software improved an organization’s win rate for RFPs by 9.8%. It was saving companies $528k in staff time per year and roughly 67 hours. More than eight days per proposal.
Combined, VisibleThread’s clients saw an increase in revenue of $438,849,249, from improving their proposal win rate.
The human workforce and automation
So, as RFP automation software becomes more widespread, will humans become obsolete? Absolutely not. With RFP software handling the tedious copy-and-paste side of things, your team is free to brainstorm ideas or perform deeper quality analysis.
Proposal managers can spend their time developing a creative approach or a new strategy designed to win. Your team can spend time building relationships with decision-makers in government. They can develop a broad understanding of the business context for proposals, and leverage those skills to help you win.
Start a 7-day free trial of VT Docs and see how it can revolutionize your RFP process.
