Overcoming RFP challenges: Why AI is a game-changer for solutions teams

Winning a big enterprise sales deal is the kind of moment sales dreams are made of – the euphoria, the high-fives, the celebration of months (or even years) of effort paying off. But behind that triumphant win lies the gritty reality: securing the deal often hinges on navigating a labyrinth of challenges. Among them, few are as critical or as exhausting as tackling long, elaborate Request for Proposals (RFPs). 

These complex, usually overwhelming documents are the gateway to enterprise deals, demanding a combination of strategy, precision, and persistence to complete. How you respond to your RFP can be the deciding factor in determining whether you’re hopeful contenders or winners.

The RFP process can be very people-intensive. Large organizations in the US sometimes have over two dozen presales or solutions engineers involved in global RFP production making it a large and expensive undertaking. With each RFP taking anywhere from 10 to 30+ hours of work, presales engineers often look for ways to optimize the process.

In this blog, we will highlight the challenges bid managers, proposal managers, presales teams, and solutions engineers face while answering RFPs and how AI is transforming the traditional process of RFP management.

Filling out RFPs is everyone’s least favorite task

Whether it’s hunting for the right information, chasing down approvals, or crafting responses that won’t put the reader to sleep, filling out an RFP can suck the energy out of even the most motivated teams. It’s no wonder RFPs have earned a reputation as the task everyone loves to hate. But why exactly are they so dreaded? 

Here are some of the key challenges presales and solutions engineering teams face when tackling RFPs:

1. Knowledge scattered across multiple apps: Hunting down critical information by searching through different apps is a massive time drain, delaying progress and forcing teams to rely heavily on subject matter experts (SMEs) for technical answers. This not only slows response times but also burdens SMEs with repetitive queries, pulling them away from higher-value work.

2.  Time constraints: Presales teams, bid managers, and proposal managers often struggle to find the time to customize hundreds of RFP responses due to the sheer volume of questionnaires. As a result, they end up submitting bland, cookie-cutter proposals that fail to connect with clients. This not only lowers win rates but also leaves teams feeling frustrated.

3. Juggling multi-stakeholder collaboration: Completing an RFP requires collaboration with stakeholders from various functional teams like legal, finance, IT, etc. to gather accurate responses. Verifying and approving each response often involves multiple back-and-forths, eating into tight deadlines, and resulting in delays and last-minute submissions.

These challenges make the RFP process feel like a burden, but with the right strategies, sales, presales, and solutions engineering teams can overcome these obstacles and turn their answers into a competitive advantage.

7 steps to go from ‘chaos’ to ‘close’ with winning RFPs

While winning an RFP is the first significant step to closing a deal, it isn’t just a sales task – it’s a full-team effort that requires seamless collaboration across multiple functional teams. From product and engineering to legal, each stakeholder brings critical expertise to the table. The challenge? Aligning these diverse perspectives while staying on top of tight deadlines and ensuring every response reflects the company’s value proposition.

Here are some critical guidelines for solutions and presales engineers to streamline the RFP process and ensure timely, personalized, and accurate submissions:

1. Start with a clear plan

Break down the RFP into sections, assign responsibilities to specific team members, and establish clear deadlines for drafts and reviews. Use a project management tool to track progress and avoid last-minute scrambles.

2. Centralize collaboration

Leverage a single platform for document sharing and real-time collaboration. This ensures that everyone works from the latest version and eliminates confusion caused by scattered updates.

3. Create & maintain a knowledge repository

Develop a centralized repository of frequently used responses, technical specifications, and key product information. Regularly update this library to ensure it reflects the latest offerings and messaging.

4. Customize for each client

Avoid generalized answers. Tailor responses to address the client’s specific needs, industry, and pain points. Include relevant use cases or success stories that resonate with their challenges.

5. Engage SMEs early

Identify subject matter experts (SMEs) for technical, legal, or financial sections early in the process. Provide them with context about the client and their requirements to get precise and aligned responses.

6. Schedule regular check-ins

Host brief status meetings to discuss progress, address roadblocks, and align on the next steps. These touch-points help maintain momentum and catch potential delays early. Allocate time for a final review to ensure all responses are polished, compliant with RFP requirements, and free of errors. 

7. Implement an RFP automation tool

Use AI-powered tools to quickly generate draft responses based on your knowledge base. This can save hours of manual work while ensuring consistency and accuracy.

Streamline your RFP process with GenAI to win deals faster

Imagine if ChatGPT could tap into your company knowledge to deliver customized answers tailored to your client’s profile, unlocking a new level of efficiency and precision in your RFP responses.

Modern AI RFP solutions are transforming the way teams tackle RFPs, RFIs, and RFQs. By tapping into a company’s existing knowledge base, these tools deliver customized responses that turn near wins into big victories – all while saving valuable time.

AI-first platforms like SiftHub streamline every aspect of the RFP completion process, allowing presales and solutions teams to focus on what truly matters – moving a deal forward. 

Autofill entire questionnaires in minutes

‍Take the time to work on other pending tasks as AI helps generate responses to hundreds of complex RFP questions with just a few clicks. With robust integrations and the right guardrails, AI can tap into company knowledge scattered across various apps and fill out responses directly on Google Sheets, Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or Excel, and even directly in a vendor’s portal in some cases! By maximizing team bandwidth, AI empowers presales teams to handle more RFPs, boosting the sales pipeline and improving win rates.

Personalize your RFP responses

By tailoring responses and solution narratives to match a prospect’s industry, pain points, and goals, AI eliminates the need for extensive research. Solutions engineers, sales, and presales teams can craft highly personalized proposals that resonate with clients, all while saving time. With AI-driven customization, teams boost productivity, shifting their focus from repetitive tasks to strategic, high-impact activities.

Build a centralized knowledge hub

‍Bring your scattered company knowledge together in a single, unified knowledge hub through seamless integrations. Whether it’s previously completed RFPs saved in Drive folders, technical product information stored in Confluence, or pricing models shared via Slack, your teams no longer need to waste time toggling between multiple apps or communication channels to find the information they need. Instead, they can directly ask an AI RFP tool like SiftHub, and it will search for them, giving them the answers they need in seconds. 

Automate task creation and customize workflows

‍Simplify your RFP project management with AI to make every step of the process more efficient. Assign tasks, set deadlines, and manage reviews and approvals seamlessly without switching between multiple tools. A powerful AI RFP platform can ensure sections are assigned to the right experts, progress is tracked with clear timelines, and stakeholders provide timely feedback accelerating the RFP cycle, enabling your team to focus on creating high-quality, customized responses.

Adopting an AI-driven approach to RFP management is the game changer that presales teams, bid managers, and proposal managers have been waiting for. It's more than just a productivity booster – it's the key to accelerating your sales pipeline. By enabling presales teams to craft personalized, compelling proposals, AI positions your solution as the standout choice in a sea of RFPs.