How Teamdynamix Managed an Increase in RFP Volume

TeamDynamix is a cloud-based IT Service Management and Project Portfolio Management platform that helps organizations improve efficiency around how IT teams handle service incidents, change management, and project planning.

While their customers span a broad spectrum of sectors, there has been an increase in demand within state and local government, which has in turn caused RFP volume to triple over the past three years.

Public-facing RFPs tend to come with a high level of competition as the bidding process is open, so it is critical that each response is complete, follows any specified guidelines, and stands above the others. It is not unusual for more than 30 companies to respond to a single public-sector RFP. In order to meet this demand, TeamDynamix needed to scale their RFP team.

Scaling up to meet RFP demand

“When I first joined TeamDynamix, RFP volume was increasing rapidly,” explains Erica Schneider, RFP Manager. “We needed a way to not only handle the increase in RFPs while ensuring consistency and accuracy, but also reduce turnaround times. We started to look at various RFP platforms to help us manage these challenges.

Erica recognized that the two main issues—scalability and inefficiency—could easily be solved with the right software. It was just a matter of finding a solution that would grow along with their team.

When you’re looking for the right RFP software, you need to keep an open mind

Erica has been in the proposal industry for nearly 20 years and has worked with almost every RFP software in the market. Her approach to the evaluation process was to create a set of requirements, then systematically review each solution.

When evaluating different vendors, Erica wanted to make sure the platform they chose wasn’t just something her team could use, but something they wanted to use—and simple enough so that anyone could use it with minimal training.

From the ease-of-use and administration standpoint, RFPIO was the clear winner. Whenever her team needs help on an RFP question, the SMEs can answer it directly from their email, without logging into the application. “We’ve gotten so much positive feedback from the SMEs about how easy RFPIO is to use”, Erica added.

Maintaining response consistency while scaling

When asked why consistency is important for RFPs, Erica responded, “one of the worst things for RFP issuers is they can tell an RFP was written by multiple authors.”

With RFPIO, they’re able to ensure that each response tells a coherent story, from beginning to end—and that their responses are consistent, regardless of which organization is asking the question.

The RFPIO Content Library is the main reason they can create such consistent responses. As RFPIO Super Admin, Erica has full control over what is stored in the Content Library and can copy-edit everything that goes in there—ensuring all 1,600 question-answer pairs in the TeamDynamix library are accurate and consistent.

Their commitment to crafting consistent responses has paid off. Since they’ve started using RFPIO to respond to RFPs, “we get so much positive feedback on our RFPs”, Erica said. “Things like, ‘This is the best RFP I’ve ever seen’ or ‘We were really impressed with your RFP’. It’s so rare to get positive feedback—which is really a testament to our ability to deliver a consistent result.”

Responding to more RFPs in less time

“Over the past few years, we have tripled our RFP volume and increased the size of the RFP team as well,” Erica said. “Our goal is to finalize each response ahead of schedule so that we can do a full review — including peer reviews and with the sales team before submission. With RFPIO, we have reduced turnaround time by around 40%. By reducing the turnaround time by such a significant percentage, we can spend more time being consultative and strategic”

“We very much view our responses as a core differentiator. We closely track our down-selection rates, and are tracking twice as high as best practice benchmarks,” explains Erica.

Now that Erica has streamlined the response process at TeamDynamix, she’s focusing her attention on finding new ways to use RFPIO at her organization. Specifically, she’s making sure everyone who is client-facing can use the RFPIO Content Library as a resource for finding company information and answering any client questions.

It helps that RFPIO is so easy to use. “It takes about 10-30 minutes to train the client-facing teams on how to search for information in RFPIO,” Erica explained.

“I’m excited for the future of RFPIO at TeamDynamix. RFPIO has so many features that I know there are more ways we can be using the tool”, Erica went on. “I can’t wait to see what else we can do with it.”