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Is Your Data Center RFP Making These Super-Common Mistakes? (Screencast) - YouTube
Channel: SP Home Run Inc.
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Is Your
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Data Center RFP Making These Super-Common
Mistakes?
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Writing a request for proposal is as much
an art as a science.
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Providing clear, unbiased buying criteria,
creating compelling reasons for vendors to
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bid on your data center RFP, and ensuring
you provide enough time to respond to your
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competition are some of the fundamental elements
technology service providers look for when
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deciding whether or not to bid.
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Here are five of the biggest errors weâve
seen data center clients make, and ways you
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can avoid them.
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1.
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Writing Your RFP with Unfair Bias to a Single
Vendor
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When a technology vendor looks at an RFP it
usually evaluates the opportunity cost based
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on:
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Can we win this business?
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Is it worth winning?
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What other business are we pursuing, and can
we bid the RFP and still win other business?
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Do we have an existing relationship with the
client?
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Does our competition have a relationship with
the client?
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If a vendor sees messaging in a data center
RFP which makes it seem as if the competition
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has already been won by another vendor, it
might choose to no-bid the business.
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Though you will likely get a number of offers
to write your RFP from data center service
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providers, you should write the RFP in a way
which is transparent and doesnât seem as
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if it favors any one managed service provider.
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2.
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Not Giving Bidders Enough Time to Bid on the
RFP
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You might need delivery of services to start
quickly once you have the budget to do so.
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You might have been provided some direction
to complete a contract quickly and get additional
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managed storage or server capacity for a new
project.
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If you want to get a reasonable number of
proposals, donât provide a short period
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of time for vendors to submit their bids.
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Resist the temptation to request multiple
hard copies of proposals and complex packaging
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of proposals in an obscure way.
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Electronic bids can save vendors on printing
costs and transportation costs.
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3.
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Difficult Proposal Format
Some government proposals ask vendors to provide
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technical answers on their response grid where
you have to restate the question they asked,
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refer to technical documentation in technical
manuals, and work within a complex Word template.
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When you are writing your RFP, remember not
only does someone have to respond to it, but
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you then have to thoroughly evaluate proposals
and their answers.
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Do everyone a favor and make the RFP easy
to answer and easy to review.
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IT vendors love the classic âYes, No, Yes
with Qualificationâ chart for technical
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responses
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4.
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Providing Legal or Financial Terms Which are
Potentially Problematic
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Have you ever waded through twenty pages of
legalese or terms and conditions of an RFP
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before you could even find out what the client
wanted?
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Always keep in mind: as much as you want to
contract for data center services, there are
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many customers which need to be served.
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If a potential bidder feels pursuing your
business puts them into potential legal or
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financial risk, they simply wonât bid.
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Fixed bid contracts, unrealistic service level
agreement requirements, and other high risk
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clauses can make your RFP go into the recycle
bin, and a vendor move on to business pursuits
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which arenât as potentially risky.
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5. Make Sure the RFP Process Isnât Just
a Market Study
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Like the boy who cried wolf, some organizations
issue RFPs just to see what products and services
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are available for future initiatives.
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Or after the services RFP process is over,
they try to renegotiate terms, or get vendors
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to jump through a lot of hoops to get your
business.
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Having a short list of vendors and a âbake
offâ of services is one thing, but donât
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make vendors go through another round of proposals
as a negotiation tactic.
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The data center RFP process is an opportunity
for a public sector organization, company,
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or non-profit association to contract with
vendors in a way which provides provisions
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for price, value, and levels of service that
are clearly established from the outset.
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If you are seeking data center services, make
sure you craft an RFP which you would bid
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on if you were in a vendorâs shoes.
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What other data center RFP errors have you
seen?
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Please share your thoughts in the Comments
section below.
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To follow up on the tips in this article,
be sure to download your free guide to Lead
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Generation Best Practices for Colocation Data
Centers.
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