Tuesday, June 07, 2005


 

Bids and responses

I've spent the last month to two months writing a lot of proposals. These proposals take a lot of work - usually 1 - 3 hours depending on the website. Alot of preliminary requirements gathering, understanding their business needs, and coming up with proposed solutions.

One of my pet peeves is when I don't get a response. Its' a clue to me on how future project work and vendor relations will go.

Do your consultants and vendors a favor and give them the same respect they are giving you by submitting a proposal - respond to it.
Comments:
What also bugs me is when I submit a proposal, I then find out that I've been under bid because the other company proposed a much different / less scalable / not matching requirements solution then what was on the RFP.
 
Agreed - it seems to me also that some organisations use the RFP process to fish for free consulting.
I also see some situations where competing bids are simply not realistic, in terms of work effort. I often wonder if this is caused by incompetence or a deliberate decision to buy the business. Ether way it is very annoying if you have worked hard to put an honest bid on the table.
 
I've had others take my ideas, proposals, etc. and give them to another bidder (without identifying original sources) and say "I want you to do this," as well as others who fish, as Craig said.

I've found out by accident about some of these things happening to me. I wonder how many I don't know about.

This happens with the biggest players as well as with locals.

I expect that increases in the numbers of programmers in the same market will decrease the percentage of successful proposals.

It's hard and expensive to stay ahead of the herd. The rule still seems to hold that if you want to make $1 you better bring in $3 to cover costs, including preparing loosing bids.

That's why some call business dynamic, probably no different today from yesterday.

I'm sorry it's happening to you.
 
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