Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Ganesh Shankar, CEO and Co-Founder of RFPIO:
Q: For those who haven’t heard of it, what is the best way to describe RFPIO?
A: RFPIO is a cloud-based, response management platform that helps companies streamline their business proposal efforts, provide high-quality responses and create additional revenue opportunities.
Q: Why do we need to fix the RFP process? Is it broken?
A: We need to fix the RFP process, because too many sales teams, proposal managers, and subject matter experts (SMEs) are spending way more time than necessary responding to RFPs.
This is because many organizations are still manually responding to RFPs.
Manual RFP response is broken in two key ways. First, RFP-related content is scattered across old RFPs and gigantic spreadsheets, rather than contained in a centralized, universally accessible content library. Second, teams are collaborating via email and in-person meetings, rather than using project management tools.
Unfortunately, this means that talented people are spending an exorbitant amount of brainpower on tedious tasks that can easily be automated.
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Q: How is RFPIO disrupting the RFP process?
A: RFPIO is completely changing the way people are responding to RFPs because we’re giving smart people a way to put their brainpower to good use.
Rather than wasting time on mindless tasks and repetitive answers, RFPIO is a tool that gives highly skilled proposal teams the power to develop high-quality proposals that will win their organization more deals.
One of our customers told us that it’s gotten to the point where she can’t even wrap her head around an RFP until it’s in RFPIO.
Q: How does RFP software help proposal teams get ahead?
A: We find that, on average, our customers can respond to RFPs 30% more efficiently using RFPIO — and this number can sometimes get as high as 90%, depending on the nature of the RFPs.
Using RFPIO, proposal teams can use that extra time to work on finessing the language and making sure all the content is accurate.
In fact, one of our customers told us they’ve increased their win rate by 27.5% since implementing RFPIO — an increase they attribute to the improved quality of the RFPs their team is submitting.
Q: Can you give us insights into your features?
A: The easiest way to introduce our features is to show how they fit into an RFPIO-powered response process.
With RFPIO, the RFP process looks something like this:
1. Import RFPs from any source (docs, pdf, excel) into RFPIO, using RFPIO’s patented import functionality
2. Quickly find the answers you need, using an AI-enabled recommendation engine
3. Request help from subject matter experts on questions you’re not sure about, using in-app collaboration tools and integrations with Gmail and Slack.
4. Pass questions off to reviewers (e.g. decision-makers, legal teams) so they can verify question accuracy, using the moderation and review function
5. Export RFPs into the original document or a customized, branded template, using our patented export feature
These five features serve as the backbone of RFPIO — everything else builds off of these core functionalities.
Q: Are there any other use cases for RFPIO, besides responding to RFPs?
A: Yes! So many that we wrote an entire blog on the subject.
The top three non-RFP use cases for RFPIO are:
1. Onboarding
When onboarding new hires, the HR department needs access to LOTS of company information — think job descriptions, employee handbooks, training materials, and online courses. Having access to the most current company information and being able to revise HR-related content are big time-savers for organizations.
2. Discovery Calls
RFP software offers a single source of truth for teams within an answer library. Many sales teams keep RFPIO open during discovery calls, so they can rapidly search for company or product information and instantly answer prospect questions.
3. Proactive Proposals
If sales teams believe their company is the perfect fit for a prospect, they may issue a proactive proposal to stand out from the competition. But these things can take time, and proactive proposals are usually low-priority for busy sales teams. We’re seeing sales team assemble proactive proposals with minimal effort using RFPIO — helping them win more deals and generate new business.
Recommended: Q: What roles does customer feedback play in RFPIO’s product development?
A: Customer feedback plays a huge role in RFPIO’s product development. In fact, we build our roadmap primarily from customer feedback. Users submit their product feedback in our Feedback and Bugs forum, where other users can vote on features they want to see implemented.
Q: What are the company’s plans and goals for the future?
A: We are working towards growing RFPIO into a comprehensive platform to respond to all queries throughout the entire sales process.
Our ultimate goal is to help our core users be more efficient, bring in more revenue, and win more deals.
We imagine our response management system as a way to help people involved in the sales process have all the content they need at their fingertips any time a query comes in from a prospect. We’re working to better understand these processes so that we can provide an ultimate solution that empowers our core users to be more productive, while also offering tangible insights into how their hard-work is helping their employers generate more revenue and win more deals.
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