Lead Your Team to Victory with a Proposal Management Tool
In taking time out of your hectic, demanding schedule to read this, you’ve already made the choice to be the proposal manager who leads your organization to victory.
As you well know, proposal management is so much more than proposal writing. With so much opportunity at stake, you need to meet that heady challenge by bringing your team together to craft the best RFP response possible.
At RFPIO, we know that proposal management is really project management in disguise. You and your entire team of contributors respond to multiple RFPs simultaneously. Together, you must hit numerous milestones and deadlines along the way. Finally, you must submit a powerful RFP response that maximizes your chance of winning.
Discover how using RFPIO as your proposal management tool capitalizes on your valuable skill set and gets your team in the endzone.
In SaaS Proposal Management, You Have to Raise the Stakes
SaaS companies are unique. Often, large sales teams are out in the trenches relentlessly digging up fresh business opportunities. These sales team members might be short on technical knowledge and they will certainly be short on time.
As we speak, your hard-working sales team is out there lining up multiple RFP projects. You are tasked with juggling all of these software RFP responses. The most successful proposal managers balance people skills and project management skills, much like a quarterback balances his leadership skills and play calls.
Now, more than ever, people need to know their data is secure. Cybersecurity is the extra pillar of your company’s SaaS solutions in today’s evolving landscape. SaaS companies are therefore facing the added burden of completing lengthy security questionnaires in addition to regular RFP responses.
No need to panic. An effective proposal management tool like RFPIO helps responders accelerate the process for all kinds of security questionnaires.
Proposal Management Software to the Rescue
In the 2019 RFPIO Responder Survey, we asked proposal managers about their primary goals with RFP projects. They spoke loud and clear: 57% said they need to improve their proposal management process to save time.
Even tech-savvy response management teams at SaaS organizations have historically relied on spreadsheets to manage complex RFP projects. We all know that a manual process is slow, error-prone, and resource-draining. In the end, a manual RFP process directly impacts your bottom line.
It’s absolutely possible to meet more demands in less time. Technology has shifted, and we now live in the era of AI-enabled proposal management software. When your team digitizes a manual process with a proposal management tool, you will drastically accelerate the response process and improve your chances of capturing the business.
Proposal Management Tool Dashboards and Analytics
Wouldn’t it be nice to see the whole picture at any given stage of the software RFP project life cycle? RFPIO is a proposal management tool that offers unique dashboard capabilities in concert with analytics. Here are a few key capabilities you will find useful.
1. Intake Management
Intake management helps you assess incoming bids to determine if they are a good fit, before they become a live RFP project. Everything you need to make an informed decision is right there-the files, supporting documents, and background details from the customer in terms of the value, the timeline, and how strategic it is.
2. Insights Dashboard
The insights dashboard is an incredibly valuable tool. It analyzes trends based on past responses to similar RFPs. View success rates, the completion time for historical RFPs, and your past competition. This dashboard allows you to plan resources and strategize, so you are more proactive.
3. Overview Dashboard
The overview dashboard offers RFP project managers a real-time view of any RFP project. With this unique dashboard, you can track progress toward your due date along with the progress of individual team members (contributors, authors, and reviewers). Interact with collaborators through automated notifications and daily digests to improve accountability. You will run a well-oiled machine with these dashboard capabilities.
APMP members predict that our industry, like most others, will continue to rapidly advance as the millennial generation steps into leadership roles. Collaborative tools have now evolved to the point that we can optimize our unique and vital skill set-proposal management as project management.
We all know technology is the way of the future. Incremental knowledge becomes exponential through AI-enabled proposal management software like RFPIO. Schedule a demo to discover how to lead your team to victory.
Originally published at https://www.rfpio.com on November 18, 2019.
