5 Surprising Ways to Improve Your RFP Response Process

Two of the most common requests are Requests for Quotes (RFQ) and Requests for Proposals (RFP). Each request contains a list of questions or requirements for the vendors, who must respond by a deadline in order to be considered by the buyer. 

What’s ahead for proposal management? We’ve identified five key proposal management trends on the horizon for 2023

Proposal automation is the practice of using technology to automate any part of the bid process. If, for example, your company responds to several Requests for Proposals (RFPs) in a year, proposal; automation can take some of the burden off your writers by automating the most repetitive and time-consuming parts of the task. 

Proposal managers are a big role, especially for companies that depend on RFP responses and proposals for the bulk of their revenue. Read this blog to learn what makes a truly great proposal manager and the skills they should have.

Read this blog to learn why every bid needs to be customized. It focuses on the parts of the job that can’t be automated: tailoring your proposal to each specific clients’ needs. This is why automation is so important: it frees your writers up to work on the most important part of the proposal.

How can you help your team embrace change? This blog dives into how you can encourage adoption of a RFP response automation system.

This article will help you work with your SMEs so that you can get your RFPs done on time without straining your team’s relationships with other departments.

Writing a response to a request for proposals (RFP) that wins business is no mean feat. RFPs are critically important to many businesses: the contracts won through RFP responses provide many industries with about a third of their revenue.

RFP response automation falls under the sales enablement umbrella — the use of any technology to automate part of the sales process, enabling the sales team to better do their jobs.

Content management is a set of processes, steps, best practices, and tools that help your RFP response team store, sort, and organize your sales content

A strong, efficient workflow is a benefit to any RFP team: it streamlines time consuming tasks, outlines clear tasks and roles, and eliminates unnecessary steps that might be holding a process up. Here are 4 tips that will help you build the best RFP response workflow possible.

RFP response automation is still new, and some teams may not fully understand it. To address their concerns, we’re going to bust some of the most common myths around automation and RFP responses.

RFP response automation is a kind of sales enablement technology that allows your team to work smarter, not harder, when putting together a bid.

By using automated tools, proposal managers can simplify the RFP response process in a number of ways.

RFPs and RFIs are among the most common types of requests, but what is the difference between the two?Requests for Information (RFIs): A Brief Overview

Your proposal team knows how much an automated platform will help them reply to more Requests for Proposals (RFPs).

Ombud’s RFP automation software automates tedious tasks and helps engage content experts where they are needed most. Our software is also cloud-based, so collaboration is easier and we make it easy for subject matter experts to use and update in real-time.

When your team is writing bids from scratch, it can take a long time— especially if your team is taking the time to craft detailed, complex proposals, and that can limit the number of proposals your organization can send out in a year. However, companies that invest in automation can improve their workflow and take in more business.

Automation is critical to the revenue teams of the future. According to SalesForce’s latest State of Sales report, top-performing sales organizations use automation.

Ombud can help your organization transforms sales content into expertise through automated response management.

Using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, RFP automation software is able to assemble a basic draft of a proposal that a team can then flesh out, tailoring the document to the client’s specific needs.

By using Ombud, your entire sales team will have access to a smart knowledge base to find the answers they need, regardless of whether they are responding to an RFP or just answering a specific technical question on a demo.

RFP automation is the use of technology to automate certain parts of the proposal creation process. Using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, RFP automation software is able to put together a basic proposal that a rep can then tailor to a prospect’s specific needs. 

Responding to an RFP (request for proposal) is a collaborative effort. Your proposal team needs help from compliance, legal, IT, and a host of subject matter experts (SMEs). But there’s one big hurdle when it comes to content collaboration: information silos.

Here are five signs your company needs to invest in RFP automation software to improve efficiency, RFP response quality, and collaboration across your organization.

That can be stressful when you need to put together a bid quickly, and that’s where an RFP Response Library can be a critical tool when it comes to assembling an RFP response.

For years, sales and proposal teams have been looking towards automation in order to make their jobs easier. Requests for proposals (RFPs) typically have tight deadlines for submission and can take days up to weeks to finish. 

It’s important to have a proposal team dedicated to RFP responses in place. The best proposal teams are well-oiled machines; a good RFP team can create a better experience for your company and prospects, increase your win rate and make the response process easier for everyone involved.

There are three main types of requests: Requests for Information, Requests for Quotation, and Requests for Proposal. Read more below.

Organizations are increasingly concerned about their supply chains. They want to be sure that their vendors’ processes, practices, and values align with those of their culture, customers, and investors — and avoid any entanglements with potentially problematic suppliers.

In monitoring customer volume metrics and tracking industry experts, we’ve identified five key proposal management trends on the horizon. Learn more here.

Bid & Proposal Con (BPC) 2021 is right around the corner and lucky for us, BPC is located in Denver this year. BPC is the largest conference in the world for proposal, bid, tender, capture, business development, and graphics professionals and will be held on October 10-13.

Standing out & empathizing with a customer can make or break an opportunity. Learn how to write better RFP responses with persuasive writing techniques.

What has changed since the intro of RFP response tools & content management? Here are the differences between old proposal management systems & new ones.

Evaluating RFP management software options can be difficult. We compiled 4 considerations to keep in mind while evaluating RFP workflow software.

Does your RFP management software do everything you need it to? Learn more about the difference between Ombud and light-weight RFP response tools.

With so many hurdles to get to the RFP stage, you need to make a good impression with effective responses. Here are our RFP response tips for B2B companies.

RFPs are trending toward standardization. So, how does your team prepare for common questionnaires? We compiled info about 4 types of RFP templates here.

With an increase in the need for security questionnaires and assessments in the sales process, how do you streamline their completion? Find out more here.

Regardless of your team’s size, there are a few key areas to consider when looking for efficiencies in your sales response process. Read more here.

Where do you start when you have thousands of existing sales responses? We have suggestions for how to begin building a response management library here.