Does the RFP process take you weeks or months to complete?
From writing the request, researching vendors to send it to, communicating with potential vendors, receiving proposals, and choosing the right one, the proposal process can take months to finish. And, you have to put in all that work for every new vendor you use, like cleaning crews or landscapers.
Because the competitive bidding process is so tedious and time-consuming, it’s easy to put it off or skip it altogether. But, if you don’t go through the bidding process for vendors, you could end up paying too much for a vendor. Or, choose one who does subpar work – making more work for your team and hurting tenant satisfaction.
Wouldn’t it be great if requests took only minutes to create and little effort on your part to find the right vendor?
With RFP automation the process is easy and takes only a few minutes on your part. Tools like templates, automated communication, and effortless comparison, automation can save you hours every time you need to hire a new vendor.
Wondering how proposal automation can save you hours? Read on to find out 3 steps to reduce the time you spend on getting bids.
Step 1: Use RFP Templates
One way to save time during the RFP process is by using a template or creation wizard to make writing it easier.
The beginning of the request process can be time-consuming. Before receiving and reviewing proposals, you first need to write a request. And, you have to make sure your request will get the right information to help you make the best decision for your property.
But, it can be hard to know what to write in your proposal. It’s easy to waste minutes or hours staring at a blank page – without making any progress. Even if you’ve written requests before, it can still be difficult to write the best request for the service you need.
Once you finally have your request written, you’ve wasted hours you could have spent on everything else you need to get done.
How can you write requests faster – so you have more time to manage your property?
By using a template. Instead of a blank page, a template gives you prewritten options of what to include in your request. That way, you always know you’re including everything necessary to get the best vendor responses.
While you could create a request template manually, it’s time-consuming to create a template that works in every situation from scratch. Instead, you can use RFP automation software that has pre-made templates or a creation wizard you can use to create a request in minutes – instead of hours or days.
Using templates or a creation wizard is the first-way automation can save you hours during the bid process.
Step 2: Automate Vendor Communication
Another way to save hours when you send out a request is by using automating vendor communication.
After creating a competitive bid request, you need to send it out to vendors. But, you need to choose the right vendors to send your request to. Otherwise, you could end up with vendors who do subpar work or overcharge your property.
Once you’ve found reputable vendors, you then need to communicate with them to make sure you get a proposal back. However, it can be difficult to get vendors to respond. So, you have to spend hours tracking them down and following up just to get proposals to evaluate.
The vendor selection and communication process can take weeks or months. This means your property is without a necessary vendor for months. And, you devote hours each week you don’t have to communicate with difficult and unresponsive vendors.
How can you cut down on the time you spend communicating with vendors?
By using RFP automation to find great vendors in less time with a vendor database. A trusted vendor database makes it easy to select a vendor with great reviews, a reliable track record, and a good fit for your property. Instead of wasting hours searching online for a new vendor, you can choose a great vendor in minutes from the database.
So, you send a request out to the right vendors – while spending less time choosing them.
After choosing vendors, automation can minimize vendor communication. Automated vendor communication means you don’t have to go back and forth with vendors just to get their bid. Instead, your automation software can communicate for you – saving you hours. That way, you can focus on managing your property – not chasing down vendors.
Having a vendor database and automated communication can save hours when getting competitive bids.
Step 3: Compare Vendors Side-by-Side
Along with using templates and automated communication with vendors, comparing vendors side-by-side is another way to save time by automating the bidding process.
Once you’ve received proposals from vendors, you need to choose the right one for your property. But, that can be challenging when proposals from each vendor look different. They might have the same information in different places. Or, each proposal might include info the other ones don’t – making it challenging to compare the proposals.
This means it can take hours to sort through the proposals to find the info you need. And, the proposals might not have everything you need to make the best choice. By the time you choose a vendor, you’ve wasted hours comparing – without any certainty you’ve found the right vendor.
Automation can save you time by creating a side-by-side comparison of vendors for you. Instead of having to sort through proposals yourself, RFP automation software can show you the relevant info. And, put it in an easy to understand chart. So, you can quickly see important factors like price, which product they use, whether they clean up, and more.
That way, you have all the information you need to choose the right vendor – without devoting hours to hunting for the info. Plus, with the easy comparison, you can feel confident that you chose the vendor with the right price and quality for your property.
Another way to save hours by automating the bidding process is with a side-by-side comparison of vendors.
Wrapping It Up
Getting competitive bids is important to get the best vendors at the right price. But, writing requests can be time-consuming. Not to mention the hours you have to spend finding and communicating with vendors. And, once you have the proposals, it can take even more time to compare each one.
Instead of spending hours of your valuable time on getting bids every time you need a new vendor, you can use automation to make the process a breeze. With templates, you can write a request in minutes. And, automated communication with vendors means you don’t have to spend time on it. Plus, automation can generate side-by-side comparisons to make choosing a vendor easy.
Looking for bid management software that can save you hours during the RFP process? Consider using Prism. With Prism’s Bid Management module, you can use a creation wizard, automated communication, side-by-side comparison tables, and more to save time during the process.
