RFPIO: Simplified RFP Response

Ganesh Shankar, CEO

An RFP or Request for Proposal is a crucial element of growth for a multitude of businesses. The modern RFP plays an important role in introducing organizations to high-quality vendor-partners and consultants from outside their established networks, creating new opportunities to develop. However, it takes a tremendous amount of collaboration, modification, and custom work to complete an RFP with the given requirements, which causes increasing redundancy and inefficiency in the workflow.

This is where RFPIO comes in as a revolutionary solution, by successfully automating the proposal response process. Developed by a diverse team of professionals with over a decade of experience responding to RFPs, the RFPIO platform was designed to serve as project management software that would make companies more efficient and effective in responding to proposals. RFPIO’s SaaS solution enables sales teams to fully track the lifecycle of RFPs. They can monitor progress in the solution or in their preferred tool through RFPIO’s bi-directional Salesforce integration.

Ganesh Shankar, CEO of RFPIO, said, “When we first started out replying to RFPs we were using Excel, and we knew there must be a better way to streamline the RFP process. We did the market research and discovered there wasn’t a better solution out there. That’s when we decided to take matters into our own hands.” Within a few years of the company’s conception, the RFPIO platform has garnered tremendous success, and was rated one of the top five best products in the Project Management category in the 2017 SaaS Awards.

RFPIO believes RFP response automation software should solve issues caused by fragmentation of knowledge, so the application is designed to facilitate cross-departmental collaboration—from sales teams and proposal managers to legal teams, executives, and other subject matter experts (SMEs).

RFPIO believes RFP response automation software should solve issues caused by fragmentation of knowledge, so the application is designed to facilitate cross-departmental collaboration

The easy-to-use application allows any user to be up and running within minutes, without any special or advanced training.

Typically, the RFP format is dictated by the potential customer, and includes the request to use the same questionnaire document for the submission of answers. RFPIO addresses this through its proprietary technology that allows the user to export answers onto the same document, effectively maintaining the integrity of the document. When the format is not specified, users also have the option to export onto their own corporate branded templates.

Because RFPs are a team effort, RFPIO’s Answer Library centralizes a company’s RFP responses, allowing for shared ownership and an always up-to-date version of the content. Users can search for previously used content, tag questions and answers for organization, and assign tasks all in the same place. And as responses evolve, a recommendation engine offers up the best content for every unique proposal.

"When we break down these silos it allows for communication to flow seamlessly, and teams to collaborate in a much more transparent way. This will help in creating a positive environment where people will thrive and be more productive.” said Shankar.

The SaaS platform has seen high adoption within multiple organizations—both at a mid market and enterprise level—owing to factors like the platform’s ease-of-use, simple integration into the customer’s existing technology ecosystem, and transparency. As a testament, RFPIO has been awarded the Top Proposal Product with a 99 percent End User Satisfaction rating by G2 Crowd, a leading software review platform. The application also features a built-in feedback submission form that allows all the users to share their feedback and upvote ideas submitted by the users even from other companies. This feature significantly contributes to the product roadmap.

By incorporating the software into their business, RFPIO’s customers report on average about 30 to 40 percent time savings. Companies can utilize this time to generate new opportunities and grow their businesses.

Bi-directional integrations with many popular solutions, along with an open API, allow teams to connect their favorite technologies while providing instant access to content. Innovation and agility are the company’s major governing principles. Forming a strong alliance with Salesforce by integrating the RFPIO platform within its application has further propelled the company to bring a new edge in its innovation. In November 2017, RFPIO will be presenting its booth at the upcoming DreamForce convention.