Web Site RFP Development Service
Developing a RFP (Request For Proposal) is an important and often daunting step. By working with your team, we can reduce costs, improve success, and make getting a new site a whole lot easier.
Where do you begin?
Sullivan+Wolf Design, LLC has for years help companies develop their RFPs and/or engineering specifications. The documents produced can be used to submit to studios for their proposals, and we white label the document(s) so you may add your own stationary and branding.
We act as an independent consultant to work with you and your team to develop your RFP. Knowing what is relavent for developers is important to prevent disasterous results which can hurt any business.
You may be asking if we are going to be neutral in this. Yes, we will be as we know that we're not the right fit for every company when it comes to the final developemnt. We'll even let you know if we are, and what agencies or types of angencies to consider sending a bid to.
Typical costs are $300-500 for smaller, simpler sites, and can run up to $2000-3000+ for larger complex sites.
While we typically are hired for larger sites, over 100 hours, or for complex back-ends, every company can benefit from this service.
RFP for a Web Project Process
1 In-depth consultation starts the process
Whether this is your first site, or a re-design, we need to find out more about your company. Your strengths and weaknesses, your dreams and goals. At this phase, we also need to have an understanding of your potential budget.
Often, we like to interview team members who are involved in sales and customer service. Especially true if you have an in-house web team for maintenance purposes. We want to hear their wish list as well.
2 Existing Site Review
If there is an existing site, we need to review it. This means not only from your customer's perspective, but, what is driving the site, technology wise.
As an example:
- Is it using a Content Management System (CMS)
- ASP vs PHP vs plain HTML
- What databases exist and how are the constructed and used.
- Is the site responsive (RWD)
- Does the site connect to any third-party sites, or to POS systems
We also need to review your traffic analytics (Google ANalytics or other) to determine not just visitor couont and potential SEO issues, but what pages seem to be important, and which are failing. This also helps in server determintaion.
3 Competitor review
What are they doing both right and wrong. We also don't want to copy them as well. Often, great monds think alike, but, we don't want to be wearing the same outfit to the party.
It is also a good time for us to explore personal tastes for the site's design and workflow. By looking at your competitors, and possibly those that while they are not direct competitors, share demographics with you.
4 Engineering Specifications
Engineering specifications for a web site is essentially the same as what blueprints are for a building.
For example:
- How many rooms
Basically, the pages, essentially the site map - Is it a simple building or does it feature the latest in technology?
Gives us a level of how far to take scripting and the "cooleness" effect - What appliances do we need?
This can be as simple as a contact form, to advanced e-commerce and more
The last one in particular can get lengthy with more complex sites. It is not good enough to say we need a form. In order to calculate costs, and keep them down by avoiding expensive rework costs, we need to get into details.
As an example:
- How many form fields?
- Will there be new form fields if a certain something is chosen?
- Will plain text emails be enough, or do we need plain and html emails sent?
- Are we uploading files or having sensitive information?
- Does this need to go into a database and if so, wht is needed in teh admin side?
Such as:- what reports do you need,
- WHat filtering and search capabilities are needed
- Do you need to be able to add to the database or is edit, hide or delete good enough
- Do you need any graphs in the reports
Bottom line, we need to work out everything in as great a detail as possible. You do not want people guessing and building it wrong.
5 Summation
We often go back and forth with various rounds, tightening the document up, more and more. At the end, we will deliver the RFP in Word for your usage.
And while we may not be the right company for every job, we hope we have a chance to bid on it too.
