We are qualified to assist your firm to author your RFI, RFP, RFQ, and to conduct the potential-vendor initial Q&A meetings. We are equipped to evaluate the responses, to assist your firm with the final vendor evaluation and to recommend which vendors would best-serve your firm.
Many firms seem to think that there is no difference, or that the differences are nuanced, between Request for Information (RFI), Request for Proposal (RFP) and Request for Quotation (RFQ). But the differences are real and each request actually builds upon the predecessor. When entertaining a change, your firm should actually perform all three requests to arrive at the best solution.
Below is an explanation, and value, of each request type.
RFI (Request for Information)
When change seems to be warranted, the solution seems to be very obvious. But, the ‘obvious’ solution is derived from the limited knowledge of the staff. The RFI is a tool to educate management regarding the range of options in the space that they are exploring to solve their problem.
The RFI is simply a fact-finding document that creates a dialog between your firm and those vendors who may have the ultimate solution.
There will be times where the ultimate solution may be extremely different from the ‘obvious’ solution. By sharing your firm’s comprehensive business challenges, not simply the problem that seems to demand the solution, your firm will have an opportunity to solve not only the immediate problem but it may also uncover lurking problems that would have been the result of addressing only the original problem which initiated the ‘obvious’ solution. Sometimes, the ‘obvious’ solution does not consider the upstream and downstream implications of the solution to the immediate problem.
By learning about the space that your firm wishes to explore, the scope of the ultimate solution may be affected. The RFI allows your firm to eliminate the natural “tunnel vision” that arises from a need to solve an immediate problem. The end-result of a RFI leads to a better, and comprehensive, Request for Proposal (explained later). The RFI also permits your firm to set short-term and long-term goals that might be created from identifying the original problem to be solved. In fact, the absence of the RFI could be the real source of that which is ultimately referred-to as “scope creep”.
RFP (Request for Proposal)
After an assessment of the new knowledge solutioned in the RFI, and recognizing other peripheral implications, a RFP is crafted that explains the immediate problem and the collateral problems that may arise. This document is intentionally not precise and it encourages potential vendors to assemble a plan in response to the perceived problem(s) to be solved. But, here’s the true benefit of the RFP: it allows the vendors to become creative in their solution to your problem. The RFP is not asking for a quote, just yet, but it is asking for their solution to your problem.
In this document, you are not asking a vendor to bid on a solution. Your firm is asking them to be a contributor to your solution. The responses from vendors on the RFP will show you the professional depth of these vendors, their creativity and their interest. You have to remember that the ultimate succeeding vendor will become your firm’s partner – not an extension to your firm. So, the RFP is actually a component in the ultimate vendor selection. For all practical purposes, the RFP becomes an integral part of the “interview” process. At this juncture, they are assisting with the solution and not carrying-out your design as you see it.
By incorporating the vendor responses to your RFP document, your management team can then create a final plan for the problem resolution that had precipitated the intended/perceived change.
RFQ (Request for Quotation)
After an assessment of the RFP, a compelling and comprehensive RFQ can be crafted.
In this document, an exact specification is set forth based upon the best suggestions in the RFP. Vendors responding to the RFQ are not permitted to propose alternative approaches at this stage because this was resolved in the RFI and, more-directly, in the RFP.
Also included in the RFQ document is the current state of your environment and the expected future state of your environment after the problem is resolved and the solution is delivered. The RFQ vendors have no latitude to deviate from the RFQ because, at this point, your firm knows exactly what it needs to address the problem(s) that precipitated the needed changes.