The RFP Process

The clarification stage of an RFP is a time when vendors get the opportunity to ask the publisher questions about the RFP. This allows for items that have been overlooked, issues that may not have seemed of significance to the writer, and places in the document which weren't as clear as they could have been to be addressed without the vendors making unfounded assumptions.

Generally, it is a good idea for all of the questions from vendors to be gathered together and answered one time. This has multiple advantages. First it saves the responder from having to answer the same question multiple times. Second, it allows all of the vendors to be working from the same information in preparing their responses. Without this opportunity, the vendor who would have had the best response may have been disadvantaged.

Sometime questions are answered in a vendor conference. This is a live, interactive opportunity for vendors to raise questions, hear the response, and probe for more detail or better understanding. This is especially useful with a very complex RFP. The conference can be attended in person, by video, phone, or over the Internet. Vendor conferences can be used in place of, or to supplement written clarifications.

Prescreening can be used to limit the number of vendors accomandated at a vendor conference. With prescreening, the submitter of the RFP reviews preliminary responses to determine which vendors will make the final cut. These vendors are then invited to the conference. Solicitors can also use prescreening to keep private information of the company which is essential for a complete bid, but not material to the structure of the solution. Those vendors who provide satisfactory preliminary proposals are then given a non-disclosure agreement, and the information needed to proceed with a detailed proposal.