An rfp response is a kind of tender or competition for the selection and award of a good or service in a private company. This type of contest will be marked in the procurement process or Supply Chain Management.
An RFQ (Request for Quotation) is a kind of tender or competition for the selection and award of a good or service in a private company.
RFx Request Types
When talking about a private process, companies can do what they want, within the law. But large corporations are also interested in having and maintaining anti-corruption processes as well as a correct professional relationship with their suppliers, without paying more for it.
Therefore, in the purchase process, there are several similar terms that should be clarified:
- RFI: Request for Information , or request for information. Here generally the client has asked a somewhat ambiguous question, and it is very likely that he does not even have an assigned budget. That is why you need to know what you are facing, which is why you request information from your suppliers.
- RFQ: Request for Quotation or request for quotation. In this case, the customer already has a clearer scope, and asks for a price. These types of requests are simply auctions (if we are talking about very closed products or services). In other cases, it serves to update prices.
- RFP: Request for Proposal , or request for proposal. In the latter case, a full-blown offer is requested: with its scope, with its demonstration of knowledge and capabilities
Although, in general, they speak of rfp response indistinctly (when most of the time they refer to the latter).
There are other articles that may be interesting on the definition of RFQ , but below it will detail what it should include, both when applying for and when developing.
What should an RFQ (Request for Quotation) include?
Generally, customers will tell us what they want us to include, but here are some tips on how to answer a price request:
- Above all, we must answer what they ask of us. Yes or yes, although from our point of view it does not make sense or is very difficult for our internal management
- The price is a very good place to express our advantages or synergies, therefore, as an addition, we can include some types of discounts:
- Volume or quantity, or due to implementing improvements that enable good scalability of operations.
- Synergies when packaging with other goods or services
- Duration of the contract, perhaps increasing discounts over time due to the possibility of improving efficiencies.
- The price must be expressed in easily manageable units, and put their multipliers. For example,
- Service must be expressed in months, for 1 year, and for the entire contract (eg 3 years).
- A product must be expressed per minimum unit (for example a pallet of chicken eggs), but also per unit of detail (example box of 12 dozen) or per dozen.
- In many sectors, it is not styled, but it is also necessary to make clear the variations in the CPI (inflation) that the price will suffer over time.
