Request for Proposal Example

A request for proposal, or RFP, is a document that requests a detailed bid for a supply contract. This includes a complete specification of your needs and details of how contracts with be awarded and managed. An RFP also includes specifications of what is expected of responses. The following is a basic example of an RFP based on a template that can be found here.

Purpose

To select, customize and deploy a knowledge management solution that allows our 12,400 employees to securely access, share, change and search documents from any location using any modern internet capable device.

Background

Our current knowledge management solution contains approximately 34 million documents that are poorly structured. Currently, these documents can only be accessed by connecting to our wide area network. This is a cumbersome process for employees in the field who need to quickly pull up information. The current tool is perceived as slow, error prone and difficult to use. Its search functionality is essentially useless as it only uses metadata to find documents as opposed to the content of documents.

Scope of Work

We are seeking an information technology partner with an established knowledge management platform that conforms to or can be customized to conform to the following requirements. RFP responses must include a completed "Vendor Commitment" that indicates how you will satisfy each requirement.

Requirement	Vendor Commitment
1. Security The solution will protect all information, credentials, knowledge assets and services from unauthorized use, access, modification, deletion or disruption.
2. Audit Trail The solution will create a complete audit trail of all actions and events. A tool will be provided for us to access and manage the audit trail. The tool will allow retention periods to be configured to up to 20 years.
3. Usability The solution will be easy to use. Common tasks such as accessing, updating or searching documents will take seconds to complete on any device.
4. Search The solution will provide a search tool that ranks documents according to their authority and the context of a search. Search results will be based on both metadata and the content of documents.
5. Access The solution will be accessible from the public internet using multifactor authentication.
6. Capacity The solution will have capacity for unlimited documents.
7. Migration The selected vendor will migrate our existing collection of 34 million documents together with all metadata, control data, state data and permissions.

[Note: The requirements above are illustrative examples that aren't complete as a set. An RFP for a knowledge management platform might typically have 100 - 500 requirements]

Performance Standards

All technology suppliers with a cost of more than $1 million per quarter are evaluated for performance according to our supplier performance scorecard. These scorecards include categories such as quality, delivery, cost, responsiveness, risk, information security, sustainability, customer service and efficiency. Suppliers receive one of the following scores: outstanding, satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Outstanding suppliers are preferred for new contracts. Our information technology team will work with unsatisfactory suppliers to improve performance. Contracts with suppliers may be structured to allow termination for unsatisfactory performance at our sole discretion.

Deliverables

The selected supplier will deliver the following items.

Deliverable	Acceptance Criteria
1. Knowledge Management Platform An operational knowledge management platform that conforms to the statement of work.	User acceptance testing based on test cases corresponding to each requirement. The deliverable will not be accepted until all variances are resolved in our sole opinion.
2. Data Migration Migration of our existing collection of 34 million documents together with all metadata, control data, state data and permissions.	Randomly selected documents will be verified. The vendor will support this process on an ongoing basis to fix any issues with missing documents or incorrect document state.
3. Training Training for 12,400 users and approximately 100 administrators.	All users and administrators will complete a survey to evaluate provided training. This deliverable will not be accepted until 90% of users feel that training was satisfactory and 100% of administrators feel that training was satisfactory.
4. Access Control All users will be provided credentials to access the knowledge management platform with permissions that are functionally identical to the current knowledge management solution.	Randomly selected permissions will be verified. The vendor will support this process on an ongoing basis to fix any issues with missing documents or incorrect document state. The vendor will provide financial guarantees for any damages due to security breaches related to poorly implemented access control.
5. Administrator Guide A repository of knowledge that provides administrators with everything they need to know to customize, configure, control and manage the solution.	A team of administrators, software developers and information security experts will be selected to review the administrator guide. The administrator guide will be accepted based on this team's opinion and recommendation.

Commercial Terms

Contracts will be of a fixed term of 5 years with an option to renew at predetermined prices. Our legal term will provide a sample contract according to the schedule below.

Payments, Incentives & Penalties

Payments will be based on a monthly fee per user with approximately 12,400 initial users. User licenses can be increased or decreased at any time with one months notice. Commercial terms will include a service level agreement with penalties for availability of less than 99.95%. Vendors will be required to maintain liability insurance that covers a minimum of $1 billion in damages related to an information security breach. Details of these terms will be outlined in the sample contract.

RFP Requirements

RFP responses will not be accepted unless they include the following documents at a reasonable level of quality.

Item	Description
Statement of Work	Completion of the Vendor Commitment column in the statement of work that provides details of how you will implement each requirement. This will state any issues you foresee in fulfilling each requirement.
Solution Architecture	A comprehensive solution architecture document based on our solution architecture template [attached].
Solution Design	An initial solution design document based on our solution design template [attached].
Quotation	A detailed price quotation based on the payment structure in "Payments, Incentives & Penalties" above.
Service Level Agreement	A service level agreement that you are prepared to offer to guarantee the quality of the service.
Company Profile	A profile of your firm including the history, leadership, revenue profile and any other information that indicates your ability to deliver the service.
References	Three references from customers of your knowledge management solutions.
Contacts	A list of contacts including a commercial, technical and legal representative of your firm who will be available to answer questions regarding the RFP response.

Award Process

Each accepted RFP response will be scored according to the following criteria: solution quality, risk, ability to execute and cost. Each criteria will be equally balanced at 25 points. We reserve the right not to award the contract if no vendor scores higher than 70 in total or if no vendor scores 15 or higher in the cost category.

Schedule

The following are the key dates of this RFP process.

June 15, 2025	RFP issued.
June 21, 2025	Sample contract issued.
July 15, 2025	RFP response deadline.
July 20, 2025	RFP interview sessions begin.
July 30, 2025	RFP interview sessions end.
August 7, 2025	Contract will be tentatively awarded.
August 30, 2025	Contract will be completed and signed.

Contacts

The following individuals may be contacted regarding this RFP.

Technical	Rick Someone rick.someone@somewhere.com
Commercial	Amy Someone amy.someone@somewhere.com
Legal	Edward Someone edward.someone@somewhere.com

Notes

The example above is a fictional illustration that is not intended for commercial use.

Overview: RFP Example
Type	RFP
Definition	A document that requests a detailed bid for a supply contract.
Related Concepts	RFP » Knowledge Management » Metadata » Service Level Agreement » Solution Architecture »