How to Write Request For Information (RFI) for Software Development?

Quick Overview: When developing software solutions, finding the ideal software partner should top the list of your priorities. Why? Because the success of your software depends a lot on your software partner. And in this blog, we'll determine a standard process that will help you gather essential data from vendors to make the comparison easier: RFI (Request for Information)—wondering why it is considered a crucial part of a software project? Read on the blog to know more.

Your business needs a much-needed upgrade and you want to build a software solution/ upscale an existing solution. What is the first thing that comes to your mind?

I bet finding the right software partner tops the list of your priorities. But did it ever occur to you that the success of your software development process depends a lot on your choice of development vendor?

Building a boisterous software solution isn’t just about competencies, it is a lot about competent pricing – and for that, you need to conduct comprehensive research about potential vendors and suppliers. However, manually collection of this data is painful, to say the least. And there’s a high probability that you might miss out on relevant information to strike a good deal.

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So, how about going for a standardized process where you have all the required data from vendors and are able to compare them in one go? Sounds catchy?

Then you must explore the RFI process!

To zero it down for you, RFI is the first step you must take when you identify the need for investing in a software development project. It is a widely recognized and standard process to initiate projects that lay down the client’s requirements and objectives for hiring outsourced service vendors. But most importantly, it consists of vendor quotes about their price points, skill sets, and expertise.

In this article, we’ll seek to answer several pertinent questions such as what an RFI entails within software development services, its significance, crafting one effectively, key inquiries for your vendors and more. These insights will guide you towards the meaningful responses from prospective service providers in the field of software development.

Let’s now dive deep into the topic.

What is RFI?

RFI is an abbreviated form of Request For Information. A questionnaire that comprises general information questions about vendors and suppliers, their skills, size, and experience, the service and product solutions they provide and their pricing. This is a standard process to accumulate data and because every vendor answers the same set of questions, the decision-makers find it easier to compare and evaluate service providers.

RFI is designed to find best-fit offerings and filter out the vendors that do not suit your requirements. Besides it also elicits competition among the list of chosen ones.

Now that we have defined what RFI software development is, let’s examine why it is considered a crucial part of a software project.

Why is RFI Important?

I can’t stress enough the importance of vendor screening! The request for information process assists you in judging the quality of your supplier/vendor with whom you are about to get into a software development deal. It narrows down a vast number of service providers to a small number of relevant vendors.

Although there’s no multi-tool RFI format to choose the right vendor, there have been instances where firms have even requested solutions delivered by vendors for real-life situations. Because more than getting a summary of data tables, you would like to judge if a vendor has the required problem-solving capabilities. This is also indicative of the digital strategy, software consultation approach and working style in a vendor firm and if that suits your requirements.

Although, you must keep in mind that a detailed revert on such questions takes a lot of effort. A vendor firm may not always want to invest so much time behind a RFI. Moreover, a lot of times, such requests are also a part of "trickle testing" by competitors.

Wondering who in your business function should leverage the benefit of the RFI procedure? You must read on more then.

Who Should Use the RFI?

Leave it to the Project Manager or the Procurement Manager to pivot the process of eliciting bids for required services, products and materials depending upon your project need and business structure. Once the RFI template for software development is built, they have to distribute it to suppliers and vendors through relevant channels.

The vendors and suppliers looking forward to working with you will fill out RFI and submit it back to the project manager.

A few tips while framing the RFI:

• Keep it simple! Don’t make it too much time-consuming for the vendor
• Keep your questions broad. You do not need very granular answers to choose
• Write a clear picture overview of your challenge and project background
• Maintain a clear format for vendor replies
• Make an RFI template that’s easy to compare
• Be sure to maintain open communication with the individuals your RFI may impact.

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When Should You Issue an RFI?

RFIs can be valuable in situations where an organization has the basic knowledge of possible vendors and wants to minimize the time and cost of analyzing them. It can also be used in multiple scenarios, such as IT processes, construction operations, and ad agencies.

Let's now see when you can issue an RFI.

To Research and Plan

The RFI is the first step in your procurement purchasing process when you need to map your options before moving forward. Say you have a certain challenge and you do not know the kind of solutions you have in the market for that.

I’d say an RFI is a great source for research planning and aids you in exploring your market landscape and getting to know your vendors. The responses they provide in the RFI are insights that can make you an educated buyer.

What you can expect:

• A shortlist of vendors from a wide pool wherein you can issue your RFP for further information
• Low-risk, low-cost approach to viable solutions for your challenge
• Insights if your project actually makes sense, needs refinement or is out of your budget

For Recurring Procurement Projects

An RFI software template collects general vendor information and this shortlist can be used for recurrent needs. A business can use RFI as a strategy to find best-fit providers for easily searching records and sending out RFPs real fast. Additionally, since RFI already covers the basic information, the RFP template can be customized to just the actual needs.

RFI vs RFP vs RFQ

I have already explained what RFI stands for and its relevance in procurement management for software engineering. However, in this journey, you must come across two other acronyms RFP and RFQ. It is essential that you know what these terms mean and how they differ from each other.

You may find out that many times these terms are even used interchangeably. That is incorrect because each of these procedures holds individual significance. Let’s find out what these actually mean.

With a Request For Information (RFI) you should be essentially seeking general information about a supplier/vendor’s capabilities and services. The next stage of procurement management is a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a Request for Quotation (RFQ).

What is an RFP?

An RFP stands for Request for Proposal and is the second step in procurement management for a software project. It is a more in-detail request wherein the buyer firm must specify their challenges and what they intend to achieve through the partnership – not just in terms of money but execution, quality, money, etc.

Things an RFP should include:

• A confidentiality agreement
• Details about the company
• Core needs of the project
• The existing condition and improvements targeted
• Insights on preferable project execution
• Phases of the process

What is an RFQ?

At the third stage of procurement management comes RFQ or Request for Quotation is focused on enquiring about the cost of a product or service from vendors. You can make use of this process when you have made up your mind to buy a product or service but are worried about the price point.

Requesting a budget from vendors through RFQ is the best possible way to map the market and compare the pricing because all of these vendors/suppliers are quoting for the same thing.

Must haves in an RFQ:

• Your business activity and contact details
• Pricing request for a product/service with a full description of the specifications of the product/service
• Winning criteria for the deal
• Deadline for submitting the budget

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How To Write an RFI for Software Development?

There are numerous approaches to writing an RFI because every business needs specific information from its vendors. The amount of details too varies from organization to organization. We will discuss a few must-have particulars of an RFI.

• Generic Company Information about the company, its HQ, target customers, business activity and contact details
• Ask for the vendor to share equal fundamental information about their business
• An NDA to protect your intellectual asset

Pro Tip: Avoid asking irrelevant questions. Keep it concise. Use simple, easy-to-understand language that can be interpreted by anyone.

Let’s elaborate on the request for information RFI writing process in detail:

Synopsis

Give a clear picture idea about your business and what you want. State your business origin, goals, objectives and confidentiality policies.

Credentials

For this component, mention your concerns and requirements like tech expertise for custom software development, team size, technical limits, operating systems, software quality metrics etc. The reply from your vendors will help you realize the true potential of the components they possess.

Confidentiality Information

Maintaining the security of your intellectual asset should be one of your most important concerns. After all, you wouldn’t want your competitor to know about your ideas and strategies due to knowledge gaps like software development outsourcing.

An NDA is your legal instrument that must be signed by your vendors to ensure confidentiality. You must describe in detail your privacy requirements.

Goals and Objectives

The crux is for your vendors to understand the true purpose of your software project. You must lay down in detail your objective, the software requirements, the project map, your need to hire custom software developers and your take on having control over a remote software development team.

The purpose of this enquiry is to judge which vendor is the best and the most cost-effective choice for your business.

Requested Information

Compile a list of questions for your vendor – include queries in the line of infrastructural support, software consulting services, project management, the expertise of dedicated development teams, quality control tools, and their overall approach to software development.

Expectations of Response

Here, you must set a fixed timeline by which you want the responses from your vendors. This is crucial because you wouldn’t want fixing a vendor to take months!

You can also include an assessment criterion for the responses on the basis of which you will choose your providers. This would filter out a whole lot of irrelevant vendors.

Point of Contact

This is one of the crucial elements of an RFI template because this POC is the bridge between you and your supplier. A single point of contact always saves time and efforts for both, so put forward the project in-charge’s number so that your vendors can approach him/her directly in case of confusion.

Best Practices for RFI Documentation

The key is to be thoughtful enough in your approach while writing an RFI. Because the better questions your frame, the better responses you get from your vendors. Yes, you can obviously send a casual mail to the vendor’s POC but that will only get you average responses.

Also, I would stress again, you need to be respectful of the vendor’s time and refrain from asking irrelevant queries.

Here are a few things you can do:

• Be concise and clear about the information you are looking for
• Specify when and how you want the responses; a clear timeline puts you on the list of their priorities
• Be receptive of additional information that your vendors provide – that often contains the hook you might be looking for

Now let me give you a brief overview of a generic request for information template.

RFI Templates

You will numerous RFI examples all over the internet and each would differ on the basis of the situations for which the buyer was eliciting information. I have documented a generic rfi template which can be used for a large variety of business concerns:

• Generic company information and background
• Project description, goals, and objectives
• Vendor requirements clearly describing the skills and expertise
• Instructions for RFI submission
• Requested information about the vendor’s company, their experience, solution and pricing

RFI Questions to Ask Vendors

I have carefully listed out a bunch of questions that cover all aspects of your query. You can include these in your software RFI template as per your requirements.

Fundamental Information

1. General information about your company

• Full legal name
• Name of the CEO and C-suite members
• Full address of the HQ
• Contact information and POC

2. Company Structure

• Background and history
• Size of company and dev team
• Areas of expertise
• Structure of the organization
• Vision and goals of the company
• Services offered
• The point of differentiation from other outsourcing suppliers

3. Locations, Travel, and Communication structure

• Number of dev teams, time zones they work in
• Level of English competency in the dev team
• Other foreign languages known by the team
• If POC know a desired language (mention language)
• If resources can travel to other countries for work

Credibility and Experience

• Explain your experience with the project with similar needs as our project
• Provide examples (Case studies, services provided, expertise with relevant technology for the project, experience of staff augmentation)
• Cases where you generated additional value for clients with examples
• Customer references

Project Management

• How you evaluate the complexity of software projects, estimate risks, and allocate resources
• What you cover in Project Management services
• Your expertise with PM and agile software development tools
• What software development methodologies you use
• What tracking systems you use to adhere to delivery schedules

Tech Skills

• Name your tech skills and the number of resources trained in that
• Explain your staffing and hiring process for tech resources
• How you develop the tech skills of your dev teams
• How you ensure industry standards through different services
• Explain your expertise in terms of automated testing, performance and load examination, documentation, continuous integration, security

Quality Control

• Tools for quality assurance
• Documentation standards for quality control
• How do you manage performance and test security

Resource Management

• How you maintain business continuity through attrition
• How you allocate developers for different projects
• How you handle knowledge management and skill assessment

Data Security

Describe the security measures in terms of

• Software and data protection
• Hardware protection
• Protection of intellectual property

Payment

• Your accepted modes of payment
• Collaboration models offered
• Payment structure against project milestones
• What currency do you accept
• Pricing structure in case resource visits on site

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Wrapping UpThe RFI for software development is a crucial piece of document that can be leveraged to have the best insights about the industry. Depending on the responses your receive from your vendors, you can choose your partner on the basis of their track record, pricing, references, stability, organizational structure, business scalability, and talent evaluation.Choosing the right outsourced software developers requires huge research and assessment. By following the RFI process, you can lay your hands on the kind of information that will help you draw a clear picture of your prospective vendors.