This article brings out some important issues which for some reason come up time to time. Having experience on both ends, creating RFI's / RFP's and answering to RFI's / RFP's, I would say that a RFP is more a documentation of current negotiation than a concrete offer, which will be the final contract and nothing says that contracts can't be negotiated. Unfortunately many customers and amazingly many vendors are not willing to put enough effort to find the best solution for both ends. Yes, it takes effort and time but has in all cases, I have seen, paid back very well for both sides.

I see the RFI's and RFP's done very lazily today, often copied and a little modified instead of really asking a solution. Or filled in vendor by someone who has the position by name but no technical nor legal knowledge. It really makes building contracts, SOW's, etc extremely difficult and open to interpretations. There used to be a time when the final contracts and even RFP's were scrutinized by experts and even with lawyers, statement by statement.

Of course the same can be said of SLA's and so on. It hurts the customer relationships, can turn ugly very fast and, at least, can get very costly later on. Maybe the education has been lacking or maybe it is just normal corporate politics which come to play? Whatever the reason, this article is a good reminder to watch out. And as usually, no paper can replace the face to face negotiations.

Click to read the article this is in response to.