- Call the supplier to ask what they're looking for in an RFP. "We're dealing with some suppliers who don't want to deal with RFPs because of the hassle," Cole says. So make the process as hassle-free as possible.
- Appoint a project manager to oversee the process. "Don't have someone doing it during his lunch hour. Make it his full-time job," says William Hayes, vice president of sales and marketing for HighWater Designs Inc., a pre-press systems vendor.
- Remember that a smaller company may not have all the products a newspaper is looking for, but it may specialize in one fabulous product that can greatly enhance your operations.
The ABCs of RFPs
by Keisha Stewart
Just for a moment, put yourself in the shoes of a vendor. Sitting on your desk is a 40-page request for proposal. Its jargon-filled prose defines a product that, you know from experience, would be impossible for any company to produce within the given time and money constraints. And even if it could be made, it probably wouldn't suit the newspaper's needs. What would you do?
Most newspapers and vendors view RFPs as a necessary evil. "The RFP is the building block for the entire system. It is the baseline for building a contract. It is the tool for conducting an acceptance test," says Cheryl Magazine, associate editor for technology at The Hartford (Conn.) Courant. "We use it to reference performance measurements, system functionality and acceptable integrations."
"I think that specifications are very important. They help shape the expectations of the customer and the seller at the start of the project," says David Thurm, vice president of production at The New York Times. "They avoid a lot of changes later on and disappointments and gaps in what you're requesting, especially in a complex system.
"Any complex project involves hard questions and hard solutions and compromises. You're better off fully exploring these at the beginning of a project than at the end," notes Thurm.
Despite that, composing an RFP that clearly explains what a newspaper truly needs can be a challenge. "We have this wonderful idea that, somehow, RFPs have to have all these little acronyms and abbreviations that we don't know. You look at it and say, 'Even if I get this, what will I do with it?'" says Jack Stanley, vice president of operations at the Houston Chronicle.
David Cole, newspaper consultant and editor of The Cole Papers, agrees. "They have heard this buzzword, so they put it in the RFP. People frequently throw features into the RFPs without even knowing what they are," he says.
Perhaps newspapers should talk to their customers before talking to their vendors, suggests Magazine. "If we consistently focus on what it takes to do our work more efficiently and create more value for our customers, we are less likely to be swept away by fleeting trends in the marketplace. We will be less likely to be tempted by the latest but not likely greatest," she says.
Another suggestion is to get a firm grip on reality.
"We have to have all these things, and by the way, we want it to cost $1.98. We want it maintenance-free, we want it with no bugs and delivered yesterday. It's crazy, because we overspecify in order to frame the problem. We're driving the vendors nuts," says Stanley.
At the same time, some vendors claim that newspapers are not specific enough. Certain complex systems, such as editorial front-ends, require more detail and specification than, for example, stacking machines.
Cole advises newspapers to conduct a baseline analysis of all competing products before the RFP is ever written. He adds that newspapers should specify parameters that are distinctive to their facilities and operations. An RFP might discuss, for example, how many workstations or licenses are needed, or how the newsroom is laid out. This helps suppliers understand what potential problems they might encounter at your newspaper.
An RFP can be anywhere from three pages to more than 60 pages long; Cole advises, though, to keep RFPs as short as possible.
Steve Hannah, vice president of information technology for The Gazette Co. of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, says, "The length of an RFP depends on the scope of the system and the needs being addressed. I would submit that a small-to-medium system can be addressed in five or less pages; a large, complex system may need 10 or more."
Some other suggestions given by vendors, newspapers and consultants:
We give the last word to the author Hans Hofmann, who was not discussing RFPs, but could have been, when he wrote, "The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."
Keisha Stewart is a student at the University of Maryland College of Journalism and an intern at TechNews. E-mail, stewk@naa.org; phone, (703) 902-1885; fax, (703) 902-1690.