RFPs

[Simon]

Anyone in a technical sales role knows how fucking awful these are.

They are questions defined by someone in risk management with their own unique view of the world, with no concept of how products that operate in this space actually work, and worst of all the questions are so open and arbitrary you can't even begin to give a fair and accurate answer.

Bin it all off and let's have a chat on the phone, yeah? 200 questions of pure bollocks. Don't waste my time.

[Orange Cola]

Followed by them picking up on some risk which you have to declare and then they get hung up on.

"No, we can't continue with this, they can't guarantee it wit be affected by the moon crashing into the earth...!

[duncs500]

I was about to say that was a very specific moan that few people are going to be able to give you moral support on... turns out I was wrong.

[Ascender]

Who do you work for?

We've just issued an RFI to six vendors off the back of a failed RFP with one vendor who just didn't listen to anything the client wanted and did their own thing.

We'll make recommendations after the RFI, the favourite option of which is... to move to RFP.

Its all billable I guess.

[Simon]

I think they exist because of

a) The cretins in risk management and
b) No-one seems to be capable of or wants to be responsible for choosing between multiple vendors. So they defer to a spreadsheet of nonsense. 'Look, this vendor answered 73 questions 'yes' and has a better attitude to diversity and health and safety. Let's pick them.'

[Simon]

Who do you work for?

Can't say! Sorry, this was really an RFI moan. I'm in technical sales, I don't get to talk money. That's the AE/MAE/RSM's job.

Edit. I suppose it's an RFI/RFP moan. Getting my TLA's mixed up

[V8Granite]

Hahahahahahahahahaha

I laugh in the face of your puny shenanigans.

Work permits on an oil rig, it took me an hour to get a hot work permit, extinguisher, fire watchman, all to drill about 10 aluminium rivets out. Next job I used a chisel.

Lifting plans, all very pretty and then get thrown aside as soon as no-one is watching.

I like working in Asia, stuff just gets done and Darwin takes care of the rest.

Dave!

[duncs500]

Hahahahahahahahahaha

I laugh in the face of your puny shenanigans.

Work permits on an oil rig, it took me an hour to get a hot work permit, extinguisher, fire watchman, all to drill about 10 aluminium rivets out. Next job I used a chisel.

Lifting plans, all very pretty and then get thrown aside as soon as no-one is watching.

I like working in Asia, stuff just gets done and Darwin takes care of the rest.

Dave!

I feel your pain Dave! Although if you're moaning about the above then you don't know the half of how bad major infrastructure projects in the UK are nowadays.

If you could build anything meaningful out of stacks of paper and meetings we'd be the best in the world.

[DeskJockey]

Don't forget the "we've come up with an arbitrary scenario to judge all submissions against and will decide on contract award based on that". The scenario doesn't resemble the actual ask, so guess how that'll go.

Or, my personal favourite, from an actual customer: they issued an RFP based on the high level design that was delivered almost six years previously without taking into consideration any of the hundreds of changes that had been implemented since. The company that won the deal subsequently fleeced them for every single item missing as they were all rather vital to running the business and couldnt be left out.

[JLv3.0]

It's more likely that whoever was junior enough to have the duty of preparing the RFP simply combined all previous ones to show what an awesome job he was doing, and never actually read them over with the eyes of someone of knows what they're doing.

[Orange Cola]

We've got one at the moment, didn't like the quoted figure so took a load of items out the contract which are crucial to delivering the final product.

We're now completely over a barrel adding back in the stuff someone stripped out for several times what it cost in the first round of negotiations. Slow hand clap guys.

[Broccers]

Whats this shit all about?

I am so glad my life is really simple.

[Gavin]

One I am still involved with that sounds very similar in that it is a huge speadsheet and at least half of the answers are "not applicable". I think we have had there face to face meetings where they have asked if it is compatible and we have said yes.

[drcarlos]

I can only say that I feel your pain on this.

Carl.

[JLv3.0]

I remember being asked to take over the preparation of an RFP for a full design and engineering team on a $1 billion project out here. The previous "project" "manager" had done exactly what I described earlier - found every single other RFP in the organisation and combined them pretty much, so he could show what a good job he was doing by issuing such a mammoth, complex document.

Trimmed out 95% of it, got rid of the stupid "one point for this and two points for that" crap and it all went fine. Also advised the client (as he was then) to get rid of the previous PM as sending out shit like he'd prepared ends up costing a fortune as the recipients think they're dealing with dickheads, and increase the price accordingly.

[Ascender]

Hahahahahahahahahaha

I laugh in the face of your puny shenanigans.

Work permits on an oil rig, it took me an hour to get a hot work permit, extinguisher, fire watchman, all to drill about 10 aluminium rivets out. Next job I used a chisel.

Lifting plans, all very pretty and then get thrown aside as soon as no-one is watching.

I like working in Asia, stuff just gets done and Darwin takes care of the rest.

Dave!

I loved the years I delivered technology projects in the oil & gas industry because they had no governance whatsoever and we could just do whatever the hell we wanted as all the focus was on the men & tools. Technology was just something that happened in the background.

[Simon]

Bump

Christ these things are pissing me off. Look, if you need a particular service and are looking for vendors to provide that service then you should have an idea of the appropriate questions to ask, rather than the generic external 'you touch our data' questions. Tired of writing 'N/A, that's not how it works' on pages and pages of stupid questions.

[DeskJockey]

Bump

Christ these things are pissing me off. Look, if you need a particular service and are looking for vendors to provide that service then you should have an idea of the appropriate questions to ask, rather than the generic external 'you touch are data' questions. Tired of writing 'N/A, that's not how it works' on pages and pages of stupid questions.

Sadly that is how our industry works. I also love the "we want your standard managed service, but can you please provide for the following non-standard options in excruciating detail".

[Simon]

Bump

Christ these things are pissing me off. Look, if you need a particular service and are looking for vendors to provide that service then you should have an idea of the appropriate questions to ask, rather than the generic external 'you touch are data' questions. Tired of writing 'N/A, that's not how it works' on pages and pages of stupid questions.

Sadly that is how our industry works. I also love the "we want your standard managed service, but can you please provide for the following non-standard options in excruciating detail".

You're rolling over too easily Alex. I'm fucking fucked off with this BS. By asking stupid non-relevant questions they're doing me a disservice by wasting my time and they're doing themselves a disservice by not finding out what they really need to know for themselves.

[DeskJockey]

Bump

Christ these things are pissing me off. Look, if you need a particular service and are looking for vendors to provide that service then you should have an idea of the appropriate questions to ask, rather than the generic external 'you touch are data' questions. Tired of writing 'N/A, that's not how it works' on pages and pages of stupid questions.

Sadly that is how our industry works. I also love the "we want your standard managed service, but can you please provide for the following non-standard options in excruciating detail".

You're rolling over too easily Alex. I'm fucking fucked off with this BS. By asking stupid non-relevant questions they're doing me a disservice by wasting my time and they're doing themselves a disservice by not finding out what they really need to know for themselves.

Sadly, me saying no has no impact. It becomes a "key deal" and all manner of sales speak and then a JFDI comes rolling down the hill.

Someone above has committed a number to someone further up and it is then the peon's job to deliver.