RFP (Request for Proposal)
An RFP is a formal document organizations issue to solicit competitive proposals for a project or service. It defines requirements, evaluation criteria, and deadlines; vendors respond with how they would deliver the work and at what price.
RFPs are the center of gravity of B2B and public-sector procurement. A typical RFP contains background on the issuing organization, a scope of work, mandatory and scored requirements, submission instructions, and contract terms. Responding well means extracting every requirement (including the ones buried in tables and appendices), answering each with evidence grounded in your organization's real capabilities, and complying exactly with format rules — a missed mandatory requirement is usually an automatic disqualification. Response teams historically manage this in spreadsheets and shared documents; AI-native platforms now extract the requirement tree automatically and draft grounded answers from a maintained knowledge base.
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