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How do I automate the business process to generate a proposal, a SOW, and a project plan from an initial RFP?

  • In a digital agency the process of responding to RFPs remains a tedious and repetitive task, that can quite time consuming. While many aspect of a proposal are custom tailored to the needs of a RFP, another great many aspects are quite similar -- especially the process of generating sometimes multiple proposals: Create a project plan in Spreadsheet or Project Planning Software Break down tasks into phases and deliverables Estimate hours Calculate cost structure Write Proposal in Word Processing Iterate on project plan to work within budget Calculate cost structure Write Proposal in Word Processing Go back to 6 if needed Write SOW from Proposal Create an updated project plan based on agreed SOW For some time now I have been wondering if there are software solutions that solve this particular problem, even if the underlying services are very different for specific agencies. I am aware of software like Filemaker, but even there it's nothing that out of the box would solve my problem. In my ideal world i would have a piece of software which would: Associate an RFP with a client (existing or new) Allow me to create an outline of a project plan based on a template, from which i can remove or add tasks Each task has some associated descriptive text Break down by phases Each phase has some text associated with it Estimate hours agains tasks Auto generate an  editable PDF or formatted document that contains, Project Plan, Gant Chart, Phases, Tasks, and descriptive text. File should be editable and stored in the system I could version this document I could generate a SOW from the final version I could export a Project Outline to use in project Mgmt Software

  • Answer:

    The answer depends upon the size of your agency and the software tools you have available. Multiple programs exist that will accomplish all of the task you require, many with excellent workflow capabilities. Rather than list them all here I suggest that you to to the LinkedIn Group Forum "The RFP Database B2B Forum" where multiple individuals disucss the proposal software they use, issues with implementation, etc.

Dennis Conner at Quora Visit the source

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I don't know if there's any way to completely automate this process, but if you use Mimiran (http://www.mimiran.com), you can automate the proposal generation piece, including the text associated with tasks, but  the auto generation of Gantt charts or export to Project Management would have to be handled via customizations. Another bonus is that you get notified when your prospect is reading your proposal.

Reuben Swartz

How much you can automate it is going to depend on what is most important for you to automate, and how much you're willing to spend - it may take some research to find a setup that satisfies all of the requirements above. I own a product called Osmosis (@https://www.getosmosis.com) which is aimed at helping with the requirements gathering/Word processing aspects of proposals. I know of a few others that are aimed at proposal writing specifically that you could look at- Bidsketch, Proposable, and Quoteroller. One thing I've discovered through this is that a lot of the companies that have a "cloud" subscription model tend to offer a lot of integrations with external products (popular because it gives the product features + operates as a marketing channel). You might be able to solve what you want by finding two or three products that can work together to solve what you need. Common integrations are with billing systems (e.g. quickbooks and the like to pull contacts, set up invoices etc), CRM systems (Salesforce, etc for importing contact information), and cloud storage (Dropbox etc for sharing images assets and backups of files), and then project management software for the "next steps" after the proposal. If you do this research, it's also worth knowing that anything that says it works with "Zapier" is good, because Zapier is a common integration bridge between several hundred products, so you can sometimes work around other deficiencies.

Gary Sieling

Covendis technologies has an end to end system that manages the entire SOW procurement process req to pay. I would suggest reaching out to them to get a demo. http://www.covendis.com. The system is in several state governments and handles highly complex transactions with hundreds of milestones & deliverables. It also handles change orders, acceptance, invoicing and payment all within the system.

Wayne Burgess

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