Six years ago I wrote a blog post with some tips and cautions for companies that use a formal Request For Proposal (RFP) when inviting vendors to compete for their web conferencing business. It was based on a quick list of suggested questions in an eWeek article and I pointed out that eWeek’s questions left a lot of room for open interpretation and apples-to-oranges comparisons.
Fast forward to today and a pamphlet I received via good old US Postal Service mail. It is a 23-page guide to constructing RFP questions and interpreting answers from webinar technology and service providers. KRM Information Services created the document and is making it available for free. All you have to do is go to www.krm.com/rfp and click the big orange Download button. Astonishingly, you don’t even have to fill out a form… They’re just giving it away without even taking your name and email address. Wow, is THAT ever refreshing!
The guide contains sample questions grouped into a variety of high-level categories. Each question has tips associated with it to help you understand why the question is important and how you should think about the answers you receive.
As they say on TV: “But wait! There’s more!” The guide also contains a download link that lets you save a clean copy of the entire question set without the explanatory tips. It’s in normal Microsoft doc format and you can edit it to your heart’s content to create your own customized RFP with the questions that are important to you.
This is an incredible asset for enterprise organizations that have to go through a formal purchase review and competition process. But even if you don’t use RFP’s in your purchase decisions, you owe it to yourself to download the guide and read through the questions to help understand differences between webinar products and vendors.
I have to hand it to KRM. This is altruism above and beyond the call of duty.
