EAC Blog: Why requests for proposals are still relevant

The folks at TechTarget were kind enough to let me republish my posts at the Expert Answer Center here. This post first appeared on July 11. Link here.

One of the things I find most entertaining about my job is helping end users buy security products. It is amazing that so many sophisticated technicians have such a hard time buying the products. I guess I shouldn't be surprised because many of the folks that drive the purchase process end up as managers after starting their career on the technical side.

It was a post I saw on Arbor Network's blog that got me thinking about this topic again. Carlos Morales makes the point that pretty much everyone hates request for proposals (RFP). They waste time and resources, request a feature list that no vendor can meet, and usually involve a ridiculously aggressive deadline. I agree that, ultimately, RFPs very rarely help the purchase process.

BUT, what he's forgetting is that RFPs have nothing to do with streamlining the purchase process and very little to do with trying to save money. It's all about covering someone's ass. There, I said it. Pure and simple, RFPs are used to cover the respective asses of the folks that buy things for larger companies and government entities.

I suppose that's a pretty cynical position to take, but it's true. As Carlos points out, there are ways to buy products that wouldn't require doing a formal RFP. In fact, I published an eBook on that very topic. It's available for those that sign up for my daily newsletter or email me. I lay out a multi-step process to buy a product, which may or may not involve an RFP, that can be tailored to what you need to buy and what process your organization requires.

Thanks to Carlos for making a number of very relevant points here, but ultimately it doesn't matter. We'll still see RFPs and probably more of them. As long as folks have an ass to cover, they'll continue to use the RFP process (and magic quadrants and other analyst hocus pocus -- but that's a discussion for another day) to be able to point the finger at someone else. And when the stuff hits the fan, you can only hope you still have a finger to point.