How To Elevate the RFP Process in Your Asset Management Organisation

The request for proposal (RFP) process is an essential part of asset management, primarily when it comes to getting new clients on board. It shows the effectiveness of your communication and the accuracy of how your organisation is represented.

How to elevate the RFP process in your asset management organisation

1. Restructure RFP documents into simplified formats

RFP documentation must be properly structured since it includes the objective, policies, and scope of services of the organisation making the proposal. It should provide meaningful insight on the company’s purpose while being of appropriate length, neither too long that the operative questions seem inconsistent and superfluous, nor too short that the principles seem to be disarticulated. 

To ensure proper formatting of RFP questionnaires especially for keeping up with tight deadlines, focus on two main sections:

• Guiding principles: This important section must be brief and to the point. Include a maximum of 20 questions about essential prerequisites for the deal. These could be regarding the central targets of the firm, specifications of service quality or risk margin, or even queries about the product central to the deal.
• Request for services: Instead of including elaborate questions regarding the services offered by the company and making completing the document a colossal task, focus on framing this section so that it asks the service providers to comprehensively elucidate what services they will be providing and how much of them. This way, the firm could invest its time and energy in responding in a convenient yet sufficient manner.

2. Increase engagement with service providers

The mere submission of an RFP document does not enable service providers to know your organisation well enough. The lack of engagement hinders their trust in the firm, leading to uncertainties about the business. It is recommended that the company arrange for discussions between subject-matter experts of both organisations prior to the submission of an asset management RFP, for smooth approval. These sessions must be directed towards understanding the core competence of the service providers and demonstrating their potential. Such engagement practices give investment managers insight on the level of productivity of the service providers, facilitating the decision-making process.

3. Ensure clarity of thought in the RFP document

One of the main obstructions to a durable partnership between your organisation and the service provider could be the disorganised and unclear strategic objectives listed in your RFP. The goals of the investment manager must be precise and must reflect the exact intentions of the organisation, especially the end-state vision. Without a proper understanding of the ultimate purpose of the business, the service providers would find it difficult to respond in terms of how their services would fit your requirements and what value-added services they need to develop to suit your specifications. Securing deals based on vague RFP outlines may lead to the delayed realisation that the eventual objectives of the parties are not aligned well, causing disruption.

4. Leave no scope for misunderstanding

As part of the response to the asset management RFP presented, the service providers quote their expected pricing model, which can often be complex and criteria-specific. In such cases, where the quotation depends heavily on the clarity of information provided by the RFP concerning the strategic work plan and service details, there is a high probability of certain assumptions about poorly defined variables in the document significantly affecting the pricing model. To avoid this, dedicate more time to the following critical factors determining the quality of your report:

• Elucidate your classification and management of assets, leaving no gap for doubt, indicating the lines along which the service providers must arrange work.
• Mention exact dimensions, volumes, and densities where required, including proper units.
• Elaborate on funds in a way that reflects how you expect the service providers to prioritise the resources.
• State the exact service you require in terms of duration, pricing and outcome efficiency.

Today’s business world focuses more on optimising current operations than on increasing investment in various functions. Implementing the above mentioned practices in your asset management RFP process could increase the likelihood of your RFP document being approved and winning new business.