Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences:
RFPs become dangerous when organizations assume that what they are requesting is what they actually need, turning untested assumptions into formal requirements. The result can be a perfectly executed procurement process that delivers exactly what was specified without resolving the problem that prompted it.
There is something fundamentally troubling about the Request for Proposal (RFP) process that has very little to do with procurement regulations, competitive bidding, supplier selection or value for money. It has to do with an assumption that often goes unquestioned: that the organization issuing the RFP knows what it needs.
By the time an RFP reaches the market, an organization has usually gone through some internal process of identifying a problem, determining what should be done about it and translating that decision into a set of requirements. Suppliers are then invited to demonstrate their ability to meet those requirements. The process appears logical, structured and responsible.
But there is a potentially dangerous flaw in that sequence.
What if the organization has correctly identified what it is experiencing but incorrectly determined what is causing it?
- An organization experiencing declining productivity might issue an RFP for a performance management system.
- Another struggling with employee engagement might request leadership development training.
- A company experiencing operational inefficiencies might seek new technology
- One facing persistent execution challenges might commission a strategic planning exercise.
In each case, the proposed intervention may appear entirely reasonable…but reasonable is not the same as necessary, and what appears to be the solution may have very little to do with what is actually constraining performance.
This is where the RFP process becomes particularly dangerous.
It can transform an untested assumption into an official organizational requirement. Once that happens, the question shifts from whether the proposed intervention is appropriate to which supplier is best equipped to deliver it. The original thinking is effectively taken off the table.
This is precisely where I question the practice itself.
An RFP does not ordinarily invite suppliers to investigate the underlying problem. It invites them to respond to the problem as the organization has defined it. The scope, specifications, evaluation criteria and expected deliverables have already been established. Suppliers are rewarded for demonstrating compliance, not necessarily for challenging whether the organization is asking for the right thing.
Consider the implications.
An experienced supplier might recognize that the requested solution will not address the underlying issue, but challenging the premise could mean submitting a proposal that falls outside the evaluation criteria.
The procurement process, designed to ensure fairness and consistency, may inadvertently discourage the very expertise the organization needs.
It is important to distinguish between knowing what you want and understanding what you need.
Organizations can be extraordinarily precise about their requirements while remaining fundamentally mistaken about the nature of their challenges.
A detailed specification is not evidence of an accurate diagnosis, neither is a comprehensive scope of work.
And yet, the more thoroughly an RFP is prepared, the more confidence it can create in the decision that produced it. Multiple approvals, technical specifications, budget allocations and evaluation frameworks can give an impression of rigor.
But procedural rigor cannot compensate for flawed reasoning. An organization can follow every procurement rule, select an excellent supplier and still purchase the wrong solution.
What makes this particularly concerning is that the consequences may not become apparent until much later.
The technology is implemented, the training is delivered, the consultants complete their assignment or the new system goes live. The supplier has fulfilled its contractual obligations. The procurement process has been successfully concluded. But the original problem remains, perhaps in a slightly different form.
At that point, organizations frequently question implementation, adoption, supplier performance or employee resistance.
Another intervention may be commissioned, another budget approved and another RFP prepared. The cycle continues because the organization keeps attempting to correct the solution without revisiting the assumptions that made the solution seem necessary.
The issue is not that organizations should never use competitive procurement.
Transparency, accountability and responsible expenditure are essential. Nor is it that suppliers should be given unrestricted influence over organizational decisions. The issue is the point at which procurement enters the problem-solving process and the assumptions it is asked to carry forward.
Procurement is an appropriate mechanism for evaluating and acquiring solutions. It is not, by itself, a mechanism for establishing whether those solutions are needed. When organizations confuse these two functions, they risk substituting the discipline of purchasing for the discipline of understanding.
This is why I believe the practice of issuing prescriptive RFPs without first establishing the true nature of the problem deserves far greater scrutiny.
Before deciding what to buy, commission, implement or change, organizations need to understand what is actually happening, why it is happening and what is preventing the desired outcome.
That requires a willingness to question the original problem statement, examine the relationships between symptoms and causes, challenge established assumptions and consider whether the proposed intervention is addressing the right constraint.
- Sometimes that examination will confirm the need for the solution initially contemplated.
- Sometimes it will reveal that an entirely different intervention is required.
- And sometimes it may establish that the organization already possesses much of what it needs but is failing to use it effectively.
None of these possibilities is adequately explored when the starting point is a predetermined solution.
There is also a question of accountability.
When an organization issues an RFP, it effectively assumes responsibility for defining the need while transferring responsibility for delivery to the successful supplier.
If the need has been incorrectly defined, even exceptional delivery may produce disappointing results. The supplier can be held accountable for what was contracted, but who is accountable for the quality of thinking that determined what should be contracted in the first place?
Perhaps this is the question that deserves greater attention in boardrooms, executive meetings and procurement discussions.
I am not suggesting that every RFP is misguided or that every organization lacks the capacity to understand its own challenges. I am suggesting that familiarity with a problem does not necessarily confer understanding of its causes, and organizational authority to prescribe a solution does not guarantee that the prescription is correct.
The most expensive mistake may not be selecting the wrong supplier.
It may be selecting the right supplier to deliver something the organization never needed in the first place.
If we are serious about organizational performance, responsible investment and sustainable results, then the thinking that precedes procurement deserves at least as much scrutiny as the procurement process itself, because the real question is not whether the organization can obtain what it has requested. It is whether obtaining it will change what actually needs to change.
Strategic Reflection Prompt
Before your organization issues its next RFP, ask yourself:
- Have we established what we actually need, or have we simply become convinced that what we are requesting is the answer?
- And if the successful supplier delivers everything specified, but the underlying problem remains, who will be accountable for the assumptions that shaped the request?
I’m Giselle Hudson, The Pre-Fixer™.
For nearly three decades, I’ve worked with business owners and leaders across the Caribbean who carry important decisions largely on their own, often when problems keep returning, solutions fall short, or implementation stalls.
When I ask business owners what problem they can’t seem to solve, the answer is usually “people.” So I ask them to tell me more, because people and businesses are rarely as simple as they first appear.
I help them understand what’s really causing the problem before they spend more trying to fix it. And where needed, I help design the solution and guide their teams to put it into practice.
Get Clarity before the Fix.
What are you trying to make sense of right now?
