RFP Writing Info Gathering -- Hardware Only

Somewhere along the way to writing an RFP, you'll going to have to gather some information on what you are buying, whether it be a service or a piece of equipment. We will deal with hardware first.

• Hardware Vendors
• Visit the people who make the gear or software that meets your need. You may have to cold call an HP, a Dell, a Cisco, a Juniper, a Fortinet, Sonicwall, whatever. You may have a long standing relationship. Either way, talk about what you are wanting to do to a variety of vendors. List where you are now, what you want to do, and the budget for the RFP or project. You have to give them an idea of how much you can spend. They should be able to help you with the nuts and bolts. Hopefully, they can give you a BOM of what you need to accomplish the goal. Don't afraid to play them against each other. It is a business decision. They already know who their competitors are. The closer you can get an apples to apples specification, the easier it will be later, even if you prefer vendor A solutions cause the equipment is Tangerine (no, I've never used this as a criteria. Although I have ruled out a vendor due to aestitics. The thing just looked really really ugly on the wall. I couldn't picture my teachers and staff using it without calling and saying it looked ugly). Eventually, the OEM may bring a partner or reseller in. That's actually good, usually. You need to meet these players too. They are likely who you will be buying the solution from and quite possibly performing the install or service.
• Resellers. Ugh. Good ones exist, people tell me so. Actually, they do. I've never had extended good luck with a whole lot of them. They get complacent IMHO. Anyhow, you'll likely meet the team or project lead for your area or project type. You need to figure out if you like these people, because they are likely to be who you deal with daily if they win. If you don't "click" with the first person, you can ask for another. They may say no. Deal with it. That's why you put previous customer experience or references on the RFP later.
• Laws. Be aware of these during your meetings. Some are so specific in the public realm, don't even bother asking for lunch. Yeah, if you are making a $750,000 business decision over a combined $25 lunch at Chili's, you should suffer the consequences.
• Hardware Specifications. After you meet with these people you should be able to have the contacts and quite possibly some verbiage to lock down your specification. Often you want to ensure that you aren't being sold black or grey market equipment. The vendors should be able to help you limit responses to qualified resellers by either having the correct minimal level of reseller (silver partner or better, etc) or required specialist (RCDD on staff). Conversely, if there is a local area reseller that is just -amazing-, the hardware vendor help ensure they have the chance to compete against the AT&Ts. Remember, they'd rather you buy their product from anyone than the competition.
• Balance. As you do these visits they are interested in your acquiring your business. Most get paid commissions and bonuses based on what they sell. RFP's tend to be large buys which means large bonuses. If you can't find your reseller or account manager after you cut the first check, they are celebrating you buying their solution. You aren't really the center of the universe. But money does make the world go round..

Next Software & services...

Writing RFP Tips Especially in Education Pt 1

Things I've learned writing an RFP:

Pre-writing Legal & Timelines

• Does your company/institution use a boiler plate for these things? Go find it. Yeah, it may suck and need revisions, but if you mention that, you may get to re-write it. Be careful if you open your mouth. Heck, it may be wonderful (if so, i'd like a copy!).
• Find out your legal requirements on time
• Do you have to advertise in two separate weeks?
• Do you want to allow for Q&A for clarirfications?
• Do you have to allow 28 days for responses?
• Do you have to have a public opening?
• Are you allowed to 1st, 2nd..and final submittals where you are allowed to ask for clarifications?
• Does this have to go to an approval agency such as a board? When do they meet? When do you have to be on the agenda?
• Do you have to hit dates for another agency (eRate funding)
• From bullet 2, build your schedule. Work backwards. When do you to award this? Go to the board? Or when is eRate funding applications due? Build a time-line based on finish at that date. This is the one single thing that has bitten my butt more than others. You may think it is a simple quote for 60k in electronics/equipment with no services so basically it is an over-glorified speadsheet with totals. Turning it into an RFP puts some legal requirements on it.
• Now, you should know when you have to be done with your writing.

I'll cover fact gathering, specifications next...

RFP Pre-Writing Thoughts

So, we are looking to upgrade to an entire VoIP solution. There are various portions of this project, back-end message store (voicemail), call routing, phones, and PoE switches. We have an incumbent vendor at about 1/4 of sites for the phones, and the vendor has 100% of other pieces..It has worked well but has been pricey, especially the PoE switches. However, since we've started to meeting with our switch vendors, they can provide a very good solution. As a public servant and spending my neighbors, co-workers, and friends tax dollars (yes, I really put it in that perspective), we have to find a good solution and a good price. Now,we have to figure out how to write the RFP to make sure we are comparing Jonah golds to red delicious's. We have to avoid the cheap POS stuff that catches on fire, doesn't do some required feature sets, etc, while not forcing it to be the incumbent with a feature set we will never ever use.

As for the professional services...do I ever get frustrated by them. Often, I found by the time I've written an RFP that can adequately scale and scope a professional service engagement, either I can do it or I can send one of my staff to training, take him or her off queue for a month to test, and then they can do it. Plus my group is quite tenured (avg ~ 6+ years). I know professional services serves a purpose, but a lot of resellers that provide professional services...to be blunt suck. Just cause they carry the certification (woo..ccnp in voice -rolls eyes-), doesn't mean they can tell up from down (or is that H323 or from SIP?). Maybe someone knows a good way of evaluating these vendors. We are currently inviting a couple of the ones we've not used in to help on some 1 off projects. Gives them a foot in the door and us a chance to meet them.