Bottlenecks of RFI/RFP and Bid Management Software

If you’ve ever been involved in responding to an RFI or RFP, you know the process can feel like trying to run a marathon through wet cement. Theoretically, bid management software should make things easier. And in a marketing-painted fairy tale – it does – automates responses, organizes documents, and speeds up approvals.

But in reality? Most tools are not really that clever, and introduce their own set of headaches, slowing down the very process they were meant to optimise.

Let’s break down some of the biggest bottlenecks and why they happen.

1. The black hole of information

RFI/RFP software is supposed to centralise knowledge, but more often than not, you just need to rebuild that knowledge in (yet) another tool. “AI-generated” suggestions are hit-or-miss, and critical details are either missing or are not retrieved properly. So, instead of automating the process, teams waste time trying to figure out where are the suggestions coming from.

🔹 Common pain points:

• Reused responses that are outdated or don’t quite fit the new request.
• Inconsistent formatting or terminology that makes responses sound disjointed.
• The need to manually verify every answer before submission (because trust issues).

2. Approval gridlock

Every response needs to be reviewed. Fair. But what happens when approvals require input from legal, finance, security, and product teams? Each with their own timelines and priorities? You end up in a game of email ping-pong, waiting for sign-offs that seem to take forever.

🔹 Common pain points:

• No clear accountability: Who owns what? Who’s holding things up?
• Bottlenecks at the executive level, where approvals pile up.
• Constant rework due to conflicting feedback from different stakeholders.

3. Copy-Paste chaos

One of the selling points of bid management software is the ability to reuse previous answers. In theory, that’s great. In practice, it’s often a mess. Sales teams grab whatever is in the system without verifying if it’s still relevant, leading to outdated, off-brand, or incorrect responses.

🔹 Common pain points:

• Submitting irrelevant or generic answers because they were “close enough.”
• Lack of dynamic content updates, requiring manual intervention for every RFP.
• Responses that don’t match the nuances of the specific opportunity.

4. Pricing and configuration nightmares

For companies offering complex, configurable solutions, pricing is rarely straightforward. Yet most bid management tools don’t integrate well with CPQ (Configure-Price-Quote) systems, meaning pricing data is either fed manually or requires multiple back-and-forths with sales operations or finance.

🔹 Common pain points:

• Pricing approvals delaying submission deadlines.
• No real-time integration with sales or CPQ tools.
• Errors in pricing calculations leading to incorrect bids (which no one catches until it’s too late).

5. Collaboration Breakdowns

A bid response is rarely a solo effort. It involves multiple teams, across different time zones, working under pressure. RFI/RFP tools frequently either lack a comprehensive bid management process view or miss out on real-time collaboration features, causing teams to end up with versioning conflicts, missed updates, and a whole lot of frustration.

🔹 Common pain points:

• Teams working in silos, leading to duplicated effort.
• Outdated documents getting submitted by mistake.
• No clear way to track progress, leading to last-minute scrambles.

6. The “One-Size-Fits-All” Problem

Most RFI/RFP tools were built with generic workflows in mind. But not every business operates the same way. Customisation options are often limited, forcing teams to either adapt their processes to the software (which no one likes) or build complex, manual workarounds.

🔹 Common pain points:

• Rigid templates that don’t fit specific bid requirements.
• Limited flexibility in assigning roles and workflows.
• Feature bloat—tools trying to do too much but not excelling at anything.

What’s the Fix?

Technology should speed things up, not slow them down. The ideal bid management solution should:

• Provide intelligent, AI-driven response recommendations that are actually relevant.
• Integrate seamlessly with CPQ and CRM systems for real-time pricing and approvals.
• Enable real-time collaboration so teams can work together without versioning conflicts.
• Offer customization options to fit different sales workflows, not just a generic model.
• Automate routine approvals while keeping compliance in check.

If you’re still spending more time managing the RFP process than actually winning deals, it’s time to rethink the tools you’re using. The right system should help you move faster, respond smarter, and close more deals.

Perhaps it’s time to try dainamite -> get in touch 🙂