RFP Software

SwiftCloud is a powerful e-Doc system that is ideal for both sides of the RFP software value chain.

Are you looking to…
1. Write an RFP for vendor procurement,
or to
2. Respond to an RFP and send a proposal?
Either way, we can help.

For full details about our platform, we can direct you to either

  • Procurement & Sourcing Software, which can include RFPs (Request for Proposals), but also RFI (Information), RFQ (Quote) and is often used by larger companies and governments.
  • Proposal Software, which is more than just simple bundling of proposals, but typically requires a rigorous response to an RFP, often with specific formatting requirements.

If you need both,  you’re especially in the right place. SwiftCloud’s e-Doc system is flexible, powerful, and in use by Fortune 500 companies. We’ve purposely been flying “under the radar” to deliver great service, so you’ll actually get a real human on the phone when needed.

RFP Software for Responding to RFPs

SwiftCloud’s e-Doc system was built from the ground up for sales, including collaborative sales. Easily create winning proposals in minutes in most cases by working smarter, not harder, leveraging snippets, templates, and re-using content.

RFP responses can at times be “brittle”, i.e. the opposite of flexible. One case in particular from a police chief (handling government bidding) required an otherwise perfectly competitive bid being thrown out of consideration because of a single box not being checked over a fairly minor issue that probably was oversight. Our goal is to help you respond in a compliant manner to win projects, while still making your company look great, all based on an easy workflow.

Most commonly, you’ll leverage pre-done assets from your marketing department, then combine them on-the-fly using templates, “snippets”, docs and videos all bundled into an “envelope”.

This envelope can then allow you to see who has viewed it, track time views and unique users and more, so you’ll know exactly when to follow up.

Key RFP software features for the sales side include:

  • Legally binding e-Sign on contracts and terms, including importing of a sourcing organizations docs to sign if needed.
  • A library of both global templates (all users system-wide) and your own library of templates (private to your company) to use anytime.
  • Support for multiple media types – docs, forms, spreadsheets, videos, audio, PDFs, all of which can be bundled into an “envelope”
  • Communication within the app, so your contacts and communication history are stored within SwiftCloud, giving you a single consistent point of truth and history, all time-date stamped and searchable.
  • All contacts are stored automatically within SwiftCloud’s contacts address book, and contacts can be tagged, tag-scored, added to folders, grouped.
  • Powerful invoice / estimate / quote / credit memo / receipt system allows for complex bids to be assembled using SKUs (services / products) or custom pricing items, with internal cost tracking for profit margin visibility, partial payments, online ACH e-Check, credit card payment, wire payment or offline payment tracking, and more.
  • And beyond that, we’re excited about this stuff. Need something you don’t see here? Talk to us. You’ll actually get a human. We want to help you win projects.

RFP Software for Sourcing & Procurement

Create your RFP, score respondents, track your communication and more all within SwiftCloud’s online system to improve the quality and quantity of your RFP responses.

Key RFP software features for the sourcing side include:

  • Legally binding Electronic Signature with variable levels of authentication suitable for government and enterprise.
  • Allow upload of docs, files, supporting images, videos within a doc or set of docs.
  • Easily allow cloning of a template or data-fill into a doc to guarantee consistent response formatting to better compare responses.
  • Each response is automatically added into a social workroom shared with the respondent to allow for negotiation, or clarification, easy appending of supporting docs or references, and collaboration with the winning party.
  • All docs are by default phone formatted, cross platform, with variable levels of permission – so you can make an RFP invite-only, open to all, hidden or public.
  • Easy cloud-based drive system to group projects by folder, with variable sharing and permissions, private notes, stored communication.
  • All respondents are automatically added to your contacts address book, in which you can apply private tags, link to projects, add tags and tag-scores, group into folders and more. Easily create tax docs end of year, bulk email previous respondents, create groups.
  • Private docs and collaboration tools for scoring, metrics, and KPI tracking.
  • Last, we’re adding new systems all the time and committed to your success. If you think some feature is missing, contact us. We believe software should be so easy to use it “disappears” – the better we do our job, the less you notice the software and just focus on the outcome.
  • Automatic follow-up, via our Sequences system
  • Purchase Order generation and tracking via our Invoice / Estimate / Quote system
  • Scheduling for receiving of goods or services via our Scheduler system
  • Complete Document Management system to track and archive any and all docs, including even scans of offline docs (receipts, paper docs, legacy docs)

SwiftCloud’s e-Doc system used for scoring employment candidates – with powerful tag-scoring can help you sort and score your RFP / RFQ / RFI respondents.

7 Proven Tips for Turning RFP Software into Awarded Projects

  1. Dot your I’s and cross your T’s. For government projects especially, winning projects can require a high attention to detail. It can be helpful to risk over-communicating to be 100% sure you respond to every single point.
  2. Research the purchasing organization, which can require some deeper digging. In some cases, government entities have a threshold below which RFP is not required. If a government entity’s bid-requirement threshold is $5k and you’d planned to sell for about that much, bidding $4999 may allow you to pitch them directly. Beyond that, researching previous purchases may give you insight into previous award history, and by looking for a pattern you may find the organization favors large proven brands, or women-owned companies or other factors that you may want to highlight up-front, or partner with another company to better serve them.
  3. Use the language of the purchaser. One example in marketing is the word “lead”, which can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people – ranging from “suspect” to “prospect” to “actively interested and qualified potential buyer”. Reading carefully into the RFP / RFQ / RFI can help you stay on the same page.
  4. Use video if appropriate. Video is information dense, can accelerate communication, can deepen a personal connection, local provider or other factors. Most won’t do this, but if you have video about your company and what you do, ideally with some testimonials, this can put you over the top. SwiftCloud’s proposal software can easily bundle videos into an envelope.
  5. Leverage swipe files and clone other bids if appropriate. If you do this, however, be careful – a reference to some other project within your final bid can definitely kill the message and cast your attention to detail into doubt. SwiftCloud has templates and snippets, and any file allow for “save a copy” to quickly clone new files.
  6. Choose your battles. Not all RFPs are a good fit, and some may require more work to chase than the projects are worth. Decide carefully which projects are worth responding to, and of course, which you actually want to even win. Some may be good for short term cash flow, but put you on the wrong path long term, or carry too much risk for the budget range.
  7. Build relationships. This can be tricky, as any organization requiring RFPs typically want some distance between them and vendors, and are seeking objectivity. That said, real humans make real decisions, and small details can go a long way if you make the job easier for people handling the sourcing.

And now to you: How can SwiftCloud’s RFP Software help you? The next step is to get a personalized demo, or dive in and take a risk-free test drive.

 

Further reading:

Sales