Mastering Risk Management

SOME TIPS ON THE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

The first step towards the RFP is the RFI, request for information. The RFI, should go out to as wide a field as possible, not just to the usual suspects and one or two others whom you have picked up through anecdote or hearsay. You are trying to narrow the field from as many of the available candidates as possible.

The goals and objectives which led you to outsource will point to your outsourcing needs and form the basis of your selection criteria. Those objectives and needs should have been agreed with the business, rather than procurement. It is the need, not the document, which matters. Remember golden rule 2 – talk to the business. That also means that you should be careful not to prescribe the solution ...