Prepare a PowerPoint presentation on,  “What is the Request For Proposal (RFP)?” 

Please read HW assignment file and use article attached as reference.

SIE 415-515 Technical Sales & Marketing

HW2: RFP and Proposal PowerPoint Presentations

Assignment: Prepare a PowerPoint presentation on one of the following topics selected via the first letter (or first two letters) of your last name:

·

A-C What is the Request For Proposal (RFP)?

· Assume that you are addressing a group of engineers and professionals who are technically competent but unfamiliar with the RFP process. The purpose of your presentation is to provide your audience with a meaningful overview of your topic and information that would help their company prepare to participate in the RFP process.

· Review the articles posted on D2L Content under your assigned category. Although the articles have been separated into distinct categories, many of the articles contain information related to more than one of the topics, so you should consider using any of the articles in the RFP/Proposal Process unit.

· Organize and synthesize the information from your selection of articles. Use the information that you learn, but put it in your own words. To add to this information, you may locate and utilize other resources as well.

· Your presentation should be no longer than ten minutes long.

· We won’t have time in class for all students to present this HW assignment. Use the notes area at the bottom of your PowerPoint slides to include the additional information that you would verbally share to supplement the information on your slides.

· Include your references at the end of your presentation. If you use other resources, be sure they are of high quality and include author name, date, etc.

· Check your slides very carefully for consistency, grammar, and spelling issues. Then submit your PowerPoint presentation to the Dropbox prior to class on the due date.

· Some students will be asked to share their presentations in a future class. We will contact you in advance if you will be asked to present.

Hands On

SALES
Perfecting the RFP

WHEN IT COMES to Selling to c o r p o r a t e

America, there’s good news and had news
for small and midsize companies. The
good news is that today’s corporate huy-
ers are less likely to select vendors based on
prior relationships or reputation alone—
meaning that more suitors are allowed
into the dance. The bad news is that the
dance has beconie a lot more formal.

Where there’s formality in corporate
purchasing, the request for proposal, or
RFP, can’t be far behind. RFPs have long
been used by government agencies seek-
ing vendors. But in today’s era of strict cor-
porate governance standards, RFPs are
being issued more frequently for private-
sector contracts, as well. The internal con-
trol guidelines set by the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act, in particular, have put the kibosh on
single-source, relationship-based purchas-
ing contracts. “The RFP process has be-
come the standard gatekeeping model for
any contract of any significant size,” says
Steve Banis, principal at Ross McManus,
an Albany, N.Y., business consultant.

As anyone who has responded to an RFP
knows, the process can be exhausting, and
a 33% success rate is considered excellent.
There are three main challenges to any RFP

Forget the handshake
deal. Today more
contracts require
a formal application

response: getting invited to take part in the
first place; gathering the data to answer the
issuer’s questions; and writing, packaging,
and presenting the proposal itself.

Unlike government contracts, private-
sector RFPs don’t have to be publicly list-
ed. The only way to hear about them is to
spend a lot of time networking with peo-
ple who will tell you when they arise, says
Rebecca Hefter, vice president of training at
Novations, a Boston-based corporate train-
ing firm that responds to about a dozen
RFPs each quarter. “Our most successful
proposals are for clients we know well
enough to discuss the contents of the RFP
with beforehand,” she says.

Once you’re in the game, research is
key. In January 2004, Yamamoto Moss, a
Minneapolis marketing firm, responded
to an RFP issued by a major financial serv-
ices firm for a contract worth about

$250,000. In response to a gen-
eral question about the issues
facing the brokerage industry,
one of its staffers spent several
days at a local firm observing
brokers.”It went a long way to-
ward winning us the business,”
says Shelly Regan, the firm’s
president. The client has since
turned into Yamamoto Moss’
largest.

Before cobbling together a
proposal—which usually runs
from 20 to 50 pages with a
three- or four-page executive
summary—expect to spend
long hours debating, writing,
and proofreading. It can get ex-
pensive. A response can take
several weeks to complete (a
typical RFP comes with a dead-
line of between four and eight
weeks). That’s a lot of potential
billable time left: on the table.

Vermont Electric Power Co.,
a public utility in Rutland, Vt.,
issued more than a dozen RFPs
in 2004. What does the agency
look for when evaluating the re-
sponses? “A company has to
have completed a project simi-
lar in scope,” says Dean LaFor-

est, a senior planning engineer. “It also
doesn’t hurt to have a human being who
can come in and be able to answer ques-
tions and address issues.” Indeed, while the
paperwork involved in responding to RFPs
can be daunting, many competitions hinge
on the presentation phase, in which poten-
tial vendors must back up their rhetoric by
showcasing their teams in a high-pressure
boardroom environment.

That adds up to a lot of pressure—
enough to make one long for the simpler
days of the handshake deal. But for those
firms that don’t bump into the right peo-
pie often enough, an RFP can be a great
equalizer. “Almost all of our big clients
were gotten through the RFP process,” says
Novations’ Hefter. “If you want to do big
projects with companywide application,
you have to be able to succeed at RFPs.”
—Mike Brewster

38 INC.MAGAZINE MARCH 2005 Photograph by Thomas Strand