New Industry Report Reveals How to Create a Winning RFP Response—From Team Size to Number of Submissions
Loopio Study Provides Tangible Insights for Increasing RFP Win Rates and Enhancing the Proposal Process.
Loopio, the leading provider of Request for Proposal (RFP) response software, has released a new study that identifies the attributes that make up a successful RFP response. The study also reveals that companies will increase their RFP submissions and budgets in 2020 by nearly two-thirds and one-third, respectively, to bolster a process that generates 41% of their sales revenue.
The data for the RFP Response Management Benchmarks and 2020 Trends Report was derived from a survey of 500 professionals in North America who are involved in the RFP process.
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Key factors found to boost win rates in Loopio’s research include:
Involving Sales, But Also Dedicating a Proposal Manager
Organizations respond to an average of 147 RFPs per year and win 53% of those they bid on. However, those with a dedicated proposal manager or team submit an average of 174 in a year—and higher submission numbers were associated with better win rates. Those without a designated owner are 30% more likely to complete less than 10 RFPs per year, and less likely to be satisfied with their RFP quality.
The study found that 45% of companies have RFP proposal managers, yet for 42%, the process is managed by sales personnel. Sales team members take a leading role, in particular, among smaller companies with less than 1,000 employees.
Broadening the Response Team
While smaller teams can speed up the submission process, they tend to result in lower win rates. This is likely because they fail to include expertise from various areas of the business to increase the quality of their answers. Loopio found that, on average, companies involve seven people in their process. However, those that include 15 or more people are 9% more likely to have win rates in the 80-89% range.
Surprisingly, companies with over 10,000 employees only involve an average of seven, whereas companies between 101-500 employees involve an average of eight, the highest average of all sized companies.
“It’s interesting to see that companies with more than 10,000 employees involve the same amount of people in the RFP process as companies that are much smaller than they are,” says Zak Hemraj, Loopio’s CEO and co-founder. “Our research shows that involving more experts in the response process correlates with higher win rates, so enterprise-level organizations may be leaving RFP revenue on the table.”
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Tracking Granular Metrics
While 46% of respondents are monitoring revenue sourced through RFPs, they’re falling short when it comes to more metrics that can improve efficiency and win rates. Only around one-third are tracking baseline metrics such as number of submissions made (36%), response timelines (34%), and team member performance (32%)—all of which correlate with better outcomes. Salespeople are less likely to track core metrics than proposal teams or individuals.
Closing the Executive Data Disconnect
Loopio found several areas where executive-level respondents answered metrics-related questions very differently than those in associate or managerial roles. This suggests a disconnect between the two with potential implications on their RFP bid success. For instance, executives are 10% more likely to say their team responds to all RFPs they receive. Additionally, 80% of executives report being very satisfied with the quality of their RFPs, compared with just 16% of associates.
2020 Outlook: More Submissions, Bigger Budgets, and Additional Training
This year, companies are planning to increase their number of RFP submissions, budgets, technology use, and training in a bid to generate even more acquired and retained revenue.
Loopio’s study uncovered these 2020 trends:
- 63% plan to respond to more RFPs in 2020 than they did in 2019
- 27% intend to increase their RFP management budgets
- 40% plan to hire more staff to increase resources for their RFP process
- 39% plan to invest in new technology
- 39% are planning more training for existing team members
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