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  • Is Your

  • Data Center RFP Making These Super-Common Mistakes?

  • Writing a request for proposal is as much an art as a science. Providing clear, unbiased

  • buying criteria, creating compelling reasons for vendors to bid on your data center RFP,

  • and ensuring you provide enough time to respond to your competition are some of the fundamental

  • elements technology service providers look for when deciding whether or not to bid. Here

  • are five of the biggest errors weve seen data center clients make, and ways you can

  • avoid them.

  • 1. Writing Your RFP with Unfair Bias to a Single Vendor

  • When a technology vendor looks at an RFP it usually evaluates the opportunity cost based

  • on:

  • Can we win this business? Is it worth winning? What other business are we pursuing, and can

  • we bid the RFP and still win other business? Do we have an existing relationship with the

  • client? Does our competition have a relationship with

  • the client? If a vendor sees messaging in a data center

  • RFP which makes it seem as if the competition has already been won by another vendor, it

  • might choose to no-bid the business.

  • Though you will likely get a number of offers to write your RFP from data center service

  • providers, you should write the RFP in a way which is transparent and doesn’t seem as

  • if it favors any one managed service provider.

  • 2. Not Giving Bidders Enough Time to Bid on the RFP

  • You might need delivery of services to start quickly once you have the budget to do so.

  • You might have been provided some direction to complete a contract quickly and get additional

  • managed storage or server capacity for a new project. If you want to get a reasonable number

  • of proposals, don’t provide a short period of time for vendors to submit their bids.

  • Resist the temptation to request multiple hard copies of proposals and complex packaging

  • of proposals in an obscure way. Electronic bids can save vendors on printing costs and

  • transportation costs.

  • 3. Difficult Proposal Format Some government proposals ask vendors to provide

  • technical answers on their response grid where you have to restate the question they asked,

  • refer to technical documentation in technical manuals, and work within a complex Word template.

  • When you are writing your RFP, remember not only does someone have to respond to it, but

  • you then have to thoroughly evaluate proposals and their answers. Do everyone a favor and

  • make the RFP easy to answer and easy to review. IT vendors love the classicYes, No, Yes

  • with Qualificationchart for technical responses

  • 4. Providing Legal or Financial Terms Which are Potentially Problematic

  • Have you ever waded through twenty pages of legalese or terms and conditions of an RFP

  • before you could even find out what the client wanted? Always keep in mind: as much as you

  • want to contract for data center services, there are many customers which need to be

  • served. If a potential bidder feels pursuing your business puts them into potential legal

  • or financial risk, they simply won’t bid.

  • Fixed bid contracts, unrealistic service level agreement requirements, and other high risk

  • clauses can make your RFP go into the recycle bin, and a vendor move on to business pursuits

  • which aren’t as potentially risky.

  • 5. Make Sure the RFP Process Isn’t Just a Market Study

  • Like the boy who cried wolf, some organizations issue RFPs just to see what products and services

  • are available for future initiatives. Or after the services RFP process is over, they try

  • to renegotiate terms, or get vendors to jump through a lot of hoops to get your business.

  • Having a short list of vendors and a “bake offof services is one thing, but don’t

  • make vendors go through another round of proposals as a negotiation tactic.

  • The data center RFP process is an opportunity for a public sector organization, company,

  • or non-profit association to contract with vendors in a way which provides provisions

  • for price, value, and levels of service that are clearly established from the outset. If

  • you are seeking data center services, make sure you craft an RFP which you would bid

  • on if you were in a vendor’s shoes.

  • What other data center RFP errors have you seen? Please share your thoughts in the Comments

  • section below.

  • To follow up on the tips in this article, be sure to download your free guide to Lead

  • Generation Best Practices for Colocation Data Centers.

Is Your

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