When it comes to services, many buyers think this is the easiest RFP to write, because you just have to specify what you want, right (wrong, but more on that later), but it’s really the hardest, and not just because, until recently, no tools were ever constructed to help with this.

It’s the hardest because the instinct is to specify what you want when the reality is that you have no clue what you want (because if you did, you wouldn’t have a problem or a need that required you to go out to market for a service). You know what is not being done, what problems need to be solved, and that if you don’t take care of it, things will get worse, but if you knew exactly what you wanted, that’s a specific resource to fill a specific role and an RFQ for contingent worker/contractor worker rates and possibly one or more products or tools to get the job done.

As with indirect and direct, if you are going out for an RFP, you are looking for a solution, but unlike indirect and direct, you are looking for an inclusive solution where the vendor will identify all of the resources required — be they personnel, products, or software — and put together a solution that will meet your needs and do so at a price lower than your organization attempting to do everything in house, either because they have the expertise to do it better, the resources to do it faster, or the scale to do it cheaper, or all three.

It’s absolutely critical here to focus in on the processes you want implemented, the problems you want solved, and the deliverables you expect. Not on the personnel you think you need, the systems you think should be put in place, or the reports that should be produced. Clear descriptions of what you are doing now, why it’s not working, what kind of improvement you are looking for, and what outcomes you desire (metrics, etc.) are a must.

It’s also critical to focus on what type of operation you are, how you run the processes you are not outsourcing, your organizational culture, and how you would interface with the service provider on an ongoing basis. This defines the what you are looking for because it’s not just what needs to be done, but how it needs to be done to support your organization.

As with indirect and direct, the who, what, where, when and why is more critical than the how.