Using an off-shore team to make the RFP First Pass

Are any of you using an off-shore team to do the first pass of your RFx response? If so, how is that working out for your team? Do you have any best-practices you could share? Do you have a description of the job duties you used when looking for someone to fill the role?

A customer of mine is thinking about bringing in an off-shore team to complete the first pass of their RFPs and then have their internal team focus on refining and more complex questions after. They are hoping to get some insight into how this is working for other companies and information about how other organizations described that role in job listings.

Comments

Linda Wesley

Hi @tkolinsky@rfpio.com - We use a consulting firm for a first pass on security questionnaires and security questions in RFPs. They are focused on security topics today. If this focus is expanded (to privacy topics, for example), they will need training in these areas. The non-security RFP sections are handled internally, and divided among the Proposal Team and various SMEs based on topic.

Tara Kolinsky

@Linda Wesley HI!!! It's been too long since we talked! I knew I had talked to someone who had done this before but couldn't remember who! Thank you for the info!

Linda Wesley

@tkolinsky@rfpio.com Hi Tara! You're welcome! Happy to help.

Nick DeMarco

Hi @tkolinsky@rfpio.com yes we do! We're fortunate to be blessed with two overseas RFPIO coordinators, they're extremely diligent and take a lot of the administrative headache out of my job. They are responsible for managing our Outlook inbox, monitoring the Intake section of RFPIO, transferring documents into Sections and creating all tasks/assigning all questions to SMEs, reaching out to SMEs and our Legal team where necessary, and packaging up the final project for the sales team's use. It's a great system, but it definitely relies heavily upon a) my own responsiveness to their extraneous questions and b) the quality of the content that exists within the library for them to conduct their first pass.

One of our coordinators focuses on security questionnaires, while the other focuses on RFPs, but we've trained them to be able to handle either in case one of them is out of office. They have their own KPIs such as turnaround time and I think perhaps the biggest challenge isn't a process-based one, but more so integrating them with the greater company and making them feel as if they're a valuable member of the team when so much of our business is conducted outside of RFPIO.

Hope that helps!

Tara Kolinsky

@Nick DeMarco this is incredibly helpful. I really appreciate all the detail and will share it with my customer. You mention the quality of the content is imperative - do you have someone focused on content maintenance or is that a shared responsibility for your response team?

Nick DeMarco

@tkolinsky@rfpio.com you're welcome! Also, to echo Linda's comment above, we do sometimes utilize a third party to conduct a first pass on the larger questionnaires (SIG, for example) or if we're super busy. I would still suggest having a full-time coordinator or two, though.

Regarding content maintenance, that would be me! While I answer many of the questions and draft the response documents, I also assist with maintaining our content library, documentation, and any other sales-related materials that don't fall under the Marketing umbrella. For example, our product slides are great for generic or high-level presentations, but the sales reps often need something more client-specific, so that's where I come in! However, SMEs still need to be involved for more specific questions, as I am by no means a product or cybersecurity expert.

My role originally didn't exist, but we created it because we were growing and saw the need to have someone to standardize and maintain everything. This rings true across all verticals, not just Sales. I would also suggest that this "maintenance" person have experience beyond just documentation/writing skills; a large part of my success in my role has been tied to my direct sales and marketing experience, not necessarily my writing or organizational expertise.

Happy to answer any other questions you have!

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