Many companies rely on the support of a central knowledge database to win tenders. Read more about that here. Maintaining a knowledge database can be a challenge, especially if your team is already working hard to meet deadlines and keep up with the ever-growing number of request for proposals (RFPs).
However, teams with a well-organised RFP knowledge database are more productive and work faster than teams without this support. Easily searchable content allows more efficient responses, which means there is more time to tailor responses to specific clients. Success in RFPs increases when a team can spend more time customising RFP responses. So, it is definitely worthwhile to organise the RFP knowledge database well. In the following, we will take a closer look at how to organise your RFP knowledge database.
1. Re-useable RFP content
The first step in organising your RFP knowledge base is not to unnecessarily overload it with content. To do this, you should remove content that will not be used again. The most successful knowledge bases only store information that has been designed and optimised for reuse. It is best to start with:
- The selection of the best content has previously been checked for its general applicability.
- The removal of content that is too customer-specific (highlighting elements to be personalized later).
- Applying custom fonts and font sizes to ensure consistency of branding and formatting.
2. Standardised names for RFP-documents
You just want to take a look at a previous tender for reference, but you can’t find it. Have you been there? Often, it’s because of a misnamed document. Standardised naming for RFP response documents is very helpful for busy teams. For example, “date_client_productname” is a good option. Whatever you decide, make sure there is a clear naming structure in place and your teams are aware of it.
3. Categorisation of content
Categories make it easier for your team to find the right information. Like the naming of documents, the categorisation of content is individual to each company. Categorising responses by industry is very popular, as it allows specific content for the particular industry of the RFP to be found quickly. But smaller subcategories can also help sort and protect categories.
A team in America does not need access to certain content that is required for a German team to comply with European regulations. Why should these users be distracted by the content they can’t use? Dividing your content into categories makes it more efficient for all users to find the right answers.
Categories also allow you to limit the visibility of sensitive content. In this way, you create protection for information that should only be accessible to certain users. Often covered by categories are legal or security data. For example, the sales team does not need access to certain highly protected information that the legal or security teams need to access.
Benefits of an organised knowledge database
Having a well-organised knowledge base helps you reuse RFP content by providing relevant information that is specifically prepared for reuse. This also frees up valuable time that you can use to customise the final offer to the potential customer. In addition, categorising can protect sensitive content. Managing your RFP responses in one place is made possible by RFP softwares such as Beyond.RFP. To learn more about how our software is specifically tailored to the needs of proposal teams, schedule a demo.
You just want to take a look at a previous tender for reference, but you can’t find it. Have you been there? Often, it’s because of a misnamed document. Standardised naming for RFP response documents is very helpful for busy teams. For example, “date_client_productname” is a good option. Whatever you decide, make sure there is a clear naming structure in place and your teams are aware of it.
