ihouse


Increasing vendor participation with an RFP management solution

ihouse is a consulting firm specializing in HRIS analysis and system selection, project management, and systems consulting.

Industry:
HR Technology

Use Case:
Issuing RFPs, automated scoring

Volume:
More than 10 RFPs annually

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RFP360

Introduction

ihouse knew that gaining vendor buy-in for their RFP process was key to meeting their clients’ needs. “We wanted our RFP process to be more resourceful and efficient so vendors would want to participate in helping our clients select their new technology,” said Ronni Beckwith, Principal, HR Technology Consulting Practice Leader at ihouse.

That meant strengthening existing partnerships.

“We wanted it to be much more collaborative,” Ronni said. “We wanted to work closely with vendors and make it easier for them to provide information.”

But reliance on manual tools got in the way.

“We needed to upgrade from Excel and create a true database of functionality by vendor,” Ronni said. “We wanted to have a knowledge bank that our consultants could go in and interact with.”

So, they decided to search for an automated solution that would streamline the RFP process and prevent duplicate efforts.

“We wanted a tool that would save vendors’ past responses, even pre-populate answers to help save time and prevent starting from scratch,” Ronni explained.

Solution

After looking at various RFP solutions, ihouse determined RFP360 would best meet their needs.

“We chose RFP360 because it was the only platform that benefited everyone involved in the process: consultants, clients, and vendors,” Ronni said.

The solution ensures a more consistent process that allows for an accurate comparison of vendors’ capabilities.

“Using RFP360 enables a more structured and standardized process,” Ronni said. “When using email or spreadsheets, it’s easy to make an exception for vendors.”

And determining where each vendor ranks is much easier.

“What’s been most helpful about using RFP360 is the automated scoring,” Ronni said. “Before, when using an Excel template, we would have to go through each category to ensure there were no errors from all the copy and pasting. The Excel formulas would often break in the process. It took a lot of time to reconcile.”

The time-savings they now enjoy have proven crucial to meeting their clients’ expectations.

“RFP360 is much faster, which is important because we have tight turnaround times from when the RFP closes to when the client wants to see the responses,” Ronni explained.

Ronni also touts the added visibility RFP360 brought to the selection process.

“The new electronic process ensures full transparency,” she said. “If there’s ever a question of how we came to a decision about a selection, we have a full record of the event.”

Overall, RFP360 improved the RFP process for everyone involved.

“Our team has received a tremendous amount of positive feedback about the ease of use and being able to reuse previous responses,” Ronni said. “We are seeing that vendors are now providing more complete responses with less effort.”

“We chose RFP360 because it was the only platform that benefited everyone involved in the process: consultants, clients, and vendors.”

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Impact to the client

ihouse now enjoys a cutting-edge RFP process.

“We feel like we’re helping pave the way for how RFPs should be done by using this system,” Ronni said.

She’s also confident they can identify the right solution for each of their clients, every time.

“Using RFP360 has elevated our offering to the next level — we know our clients are receiving the absolute best results,” Ronni said.

And if there’s ever an issue, they know the team at RFP360 is ready to provide world-class assistance.

“We value the on-going support, prompt response time and customer success RFP360 has brought to ihouse,” Ronni said. “We quickly picked up on the hands-on approach provided by RFP360 during our evaluation process.”

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