Web Site Measurement Hacks

Write a Useful Web Measurement Request for Proposal (RFP)

Business people love to create complex RFPs when they’re making a purchase decision. Here’s why this is a bad idea and what to do about it.

Requests for proposal (RFPs) are a very popular and inefficient way to select a web measurement vendor. Yes, inefficient. While you may think that creating a list of your requirements and then asking vendors how well their software satisfies this list would be a great way to get started, it’s not. Here’s why.

First, I have never in my life come across a company that could assemble a list of requirements in an efficient manner. Usually some poor soul is forced to walk around asking people what their needs are, trying to keep track of whether the same needs have already been mentioned, and compiling a ridiculous list that then needs to be refined.

Second, nobody ever seems to come up with a practical list. RFPs usually read like “we need everything that is currently available, everything on every vendor’s development roadmap, and a handful of features not likely to be available until humanity masters cold fusion and builds a bridge to the moon.”

Third, no matter how impractical the list, every vendor you send it to will be able to satisfy every requirement better and cheaper than their competition. How is this possible? It’s not, but do you really expect sales people to tell the truth in a document where if they do, they will most likely be disqualified?

I didn’t think so.

So what can you do if creating RPFs is a complete waste of time, energy, and resources and you’ll still end up with the same answer you’d likely get if you just read any good analyst report? One thing you can do is write a better RFP! Here are four simple things you can do to write a better request for proposal, if you really feel you must.

Focus on Your Current Needs

A common mistake companies make when writing RFPs is trying to figure out what their needs will be well into the future and adding those requirements to their list. While it’s a good idea to think about the near-term future, it’s a much better strategy to focus on the problems that you can solve immediately (or nearly so). While this sounds counterintuitive, experience tells us that most companies that purchase technology to support future measurement needs often pay for functionality they never use. If you focus on the technology you’re confident you’ll use in the next 12 months, you’ll get more short-term wins that will leave everyone feeling better about your decision.

Ask Only Well-Qualified People for Input

Another common mistake is to ask every web stakeholder for input about what the measurement application should do. This opens you up to gathering input from well-meaning folks who have no idea what they’re talking about, people who often outrank you. While politics rules in the workplace, a better strategy is to ask only people who you know are familiar with web measurement and explain to everyone else that the domain experts have the situation under control.

Send Your RFP to as Few Vendors as Possible

Given that every vendor you send the RFP to will be able to satisfy your requirements better and less expensively than their competitors, do yourself a favor and do your homework ahead of time so you can limit the number of RFP responses you need to review. If you can rely on the advice of analysts, your web measurement specialists or your industry peers who use different applications to limit the vendor recipient list to two or three, you’ll save yourself a ton of time. Consider that you’re very likely to have to sit through presentations, review pricing proposals, and perhaps run proofs of concept with vendors providing strong responses, and you can start to see how much time this can take if you’re considering 6 to 10 vendors.

Remember, Less Is More

When you’re being smart about your RFP, you’ll already have a pretty good idea of which vendors you like before you begin writing. If you’re able to write a request for proposal that focuses on the particular strengths of your favored vendors, you increase your chances of eliminating companies you don’t like, even if you’re forced to send the document to a set number of vendors. You’ll save time reviewing the responses (which you should always do, even if you have a pretty good idea that you’ll ultimately reject the proposal, because you never know what you might discover) and waste less vendor time while they’re filling in responses.

If you write a better RFP, you’ll still end up with a great piece of software, purchased via a process no more biased than a more lengthy process—one that draws on the right resources in your organization and that saves you time.