Why your RFP timeline fails (And how to fix it)

A standard RFP timeline spans 6 to 10 weeks, split into three critical phases: creation, administration, and evaluation. Delays usually happen when teams rush requirements or get stuck manually hunting for technical answers. To optimize the schedule, set strict deadlines for vendor Q&A and use AI tools like SiftHub to automate the drafting process. This approach eliminates administrative bottlenecks, letting you focus on picking the right partner instead of chasing documents.

An RFP (Request for Proposal) isn't just a document; it’s a forcing function. It forces your team to agree on what they need, and it forces vendors to prove they can deliver it. But without a tight schedule, that forcing function turns into a bottleneck.

A standard RFP process drags on because deadlines are treated as suggestions. A successful one runs on a military-grade timeline where every week has a specific job.

Typical duration: How long does the process take?

If you’re wondering how much time to budget, the industry average lands between 6 to 10 weeks.

• Simple sourcing: You can likely wrap this up in 4 weeks if the requirements are clear.
• Complex enterprise deals: Expect 12+ weeks. The moment you involve legal, security audits, or multiple stakeholders, the timeline expands.

The three core phases

Don't overcomplicate the stages. The RFP process breaks down into three operationally distinct phases:

1. Creation: Getting your own house in order.
2. Administration: Managing the vendors.
3. Evaluation: Making the decision.

Phase I: RFP creation & preparation (Weeks 1–3)

This is the "measure twice, cut once" phase. Most teams rush this part to get the RFP "out the door," only to pay for it later with endless vendor questions and vague proposals.

Step 1: Discovery & issue identification

Before drafting a single requirement, define the actual problem.

• Define the business need: Be ruthless about why you are doing this. Are you replacing a legacy tool that’s too slow? Are you consolidating three vendors into one? "We need new software" isn't a strategy. "We need to cut manual entry time by 50%" is.
• Spend analysis & market research: Check your current spend. If you don't know the market rate, you risk setting a budget that disqualifies the best vendors before they even bid. A quick pulse check here saves weeks of negotiation later.

Step 2: Requirements gathering

This is where the timeline usually breaks. You are trying to get detailed specs from people who don't have time to give them.

• The internal tug-of-war: Your end-users want a tool that’s fast and easy; your security team wants a fortress. These two groups rarely agree. Your job isn't just to "align" them; it's to force a compromise before you talk to vendors. If you wait until the demo stage to find out IT hates the architecture, you’ve wasted a month.
• Must-haves vs. nice-to-haves: Be ruthless here.
  
  • Must-haves: These are binary. If a vendor lacks SOC2 or can't handle your user volume, they are disqualified immediately. Don't waste time reading the rest of their proposal.
  • Nice-to-haves: These are just tie-breakers. A sleek UI is great, but don't let a "dark mode" feature distract you from a core functionality gap.

Phase II: RFP administration (Weeks 4–9)

The clock starts ticking the moment you hit send. This phase is about logistics—managing the flood of emails, questions, and clarifications without letting the process derail.

Step 4: Vendor selection

Don't spray and pray. Sending an RFP to 20 vendors doesn't give you more options; it gives you a headache.

• The long list vs. short list: Start with 8-10 potential fits, then cut it down to 3-5 qualified contenders before you send the full RFP.
• The pre-qual check: Send a simple one-pager first. Ask: "Do you have X certification? Can you meet the Y budget?" If they say no, you save everyone the trouble of a 50-page response.

Step 5: The "bid window"

You need to give vendors enough time to write a decent response, but not enough time to overthink it.

• The sweet spot: 3 to 4 weeks is standard. Give them less, and you get cut-and-paste boilerplate answers. Give them more, and they will deprioritize you until the last minute anyway.
• Key date: Clearly mark the "Intent to Bid" deadline. You want to know by Day 5 who is actually playing.

Step 6: Managing the Q&A

RFP questions are the biggest time sink in the administration phase.

• Centralize the chaos: Do not accept questions via email. Use a portal or a shared sheet. If you answer a question for one vendor, you must share that answer with all of them to keep it fair.
• Set a hard stop: Questions end on Week 6. No exceptions. If you let vendors trickle in questions until the submission deadline, you will never finish.

Step 7: Submission deadline

Be strict. If the deadline is Friday at 5 PM, a proposal coming in at 5:15 PM is a red flag for how that vendor will handle future project deadlines.

Phase III: Evaluation & selection (weeks 10–13)

This is where the rubber meets the road. You have a pile of PDF responses, and you need to turn them into a decision without getting bogged down in spreadsheet hell.

Step 8: Initial scoring & review

Don't try to read every page of every proposal response on day one. Start with a sanity check.

• The compliance pass: Checks if they actually answered the mandatory questions. If they skipped the security section or ignored your pricing format, flag it.
• Scoring the basics: Have your team score the functional requirements first. Use a simple weighted scale (e.g., 1-5). This isn't about finding the winner yet; it's about weeding out the ones who clearly can't do the job.

Step 9: Shortlisting

You should only be doing deep dives on two or three vendors.

• Cut the noise: Drop the bottom 50% of responders immediately. Be polite, but tell them now so they can move on.
• Notify the finalists: Tell the top 3 they made the cut. This is often where you might ask for clarification on specific answers before the big demo.

Step 10: Advanced evaluation

This is expensive time for you and the vendor, so spend it wisely.

• The demo trap: Don't let vendors give their standard "canned" demo. Send them a specific script: "Show us exactly how a user logs a ticket and how an admin approves it." If they can't show it live, it probably doesn't exist.
• Reference checks that matter: don't ask for "three happy clients." Ask to speak to a client who left them, or one who is similar in size and complexity to you.

5. Phase IV: Finalization & award (week 14+)

You have a winner. Now you need a contract.

Step 11: Selection & negotiation

The proposal price is rarely the final price.

• Leverage the runner-up: keep your second choice warm until the ink is dry. Knowing there is a viable backup keeps the primary vendor honest during legal negotiations.
• Scope verification: ensure the contract actually reflects the promises made in the RFP response. It’s common for "sales promises" to vanish when the legal team drafts the Master Services Agreement (MSA).

Step 12: Award & implementation

The RFP process doesn't end when you sign; it ends when the project starts.

• The internal handoff: introduce the vendor’s implementation team to your internal project managers immediately.
• Feedback loop: offer a debrief to the losing vendors. It keeps the relationship healthy in case you need them in three years.

Optimizing your timeline: The "paper" schedule vs. reality

If you ask a project manager to map an RFP timeline, they will show you a clean chart with linear dependencies. If you ask a proposal manager, they will show you a calendar filled with panic and "waiting on SME" placeholders.

To optimize your timeline, you must identify where the "hidden hours" are leaking.

The three common bottlenecks:

• The knowledge hunt: the average responder spends roughly 20-30% of their cycle time just locating information. This is "Ctrl+F" fatigue, scouring old proposals, Slack channels, and buried drive folders to find a security compliance answer from three years ago.
• The SME standoff: subject matter experts are your most valuable resource, yet they are often the biggest bottleneck. When technical experts are bombarded with repetitive questions, response times lag. The timeline breaks down not because the answer doesn't exist, but because the person holding the answer is busy building the product.
• Version control chaos: as the deadline looms, the document inevitably fractures into "Final_v2_EDIT_josh.docx." Consolidating these distinct streams back into a cohesive narrative burns valuable days—time that should be spent on strategy, not copy-pasting.

Accelerating response times with SiftHub

In an era where speed is often a proxy for competence, the traditional manual RFP response process is becoming a liability. This is where SiftHub steps in, not merely as a repository, but as an AI sales engineer that fundamentally recompresses the timeline.

SiftHub targets the inefficiencies identified in the administration phase by bringing "knowledge at the edge." Instead of treating knowledge management as a library you have to visit, SiftHub embeds the answers directly into the workflow where your team operates.

How SiftHub shifts the timeline

• Automating the "first pass" (80% completion in minutes): Rather than staring at a blank page, SiftHub’s specialized AI digests your historical data to auto-populate answers. This doesn't just save time; it changes the starting line. Your team begins with a document that is 80% complete, allowing them to spend their energy refining the narrative rather than drafting basic specs.
• The single source of truth: SiftHub acts as a firewall for your experts. By keeping a dynamic, up-to-date knowledge base, the system answers the repetitive technical questions automatically. Your SMEs are only looped in for net-new, high-value inquiries.
• Context-aware accuracy: Unlike generic LLMs that might hallucinate facts, SiftHub is grounded in your company’s verifiable content. It understands the difference between a security protocol for a European banking client vs. a US healthcare prospect, ensuring that speed never comes at the cost of compliance.

By integrating SiftHub, organizations stop treating RFPs as a document management problem and start treating them as a data retrieval strategy. The result is a timeline that isn't just predictable, it's competitive. Learn more.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs) on RFP timeline

1. What is a typical RFP timeline?

A typical RFP timeline is a structured roadmap that guides the procurement process from the initial internal spark to the final contract signature. It generally spans 6 to 12 weeks, depending on complexity.

It isn't just a list of dates; it’s a series of dependent phases. A standard timeline includes three weeks for internal preparation (writing requirements, securing budget), four weeks for vendors to respond (the bid window), and three to five weeks for evaluation and negotiation. If you skip the preparation phase, the evaluation phase invariably doubles in length because you spend weeks clarifying what you actually wanted.

2. How long does the RFP process take?

The industry average is 6 to 10 weeks, but "average" is misleading. The duration depends entirely on the stakes of the purchase.

• Simple sourcing (4–6 weeks): for commodities or software with clearly defined specs and no complex integration needs.
• Strategic enterprise projects (12–16+ weeks): for high-value contracts (e.g., ERP implementation, fleet management) involving legal redlines, security audits, and multiple rounds of stakeholder demos.
• Government/public sector: expect 3 to 6 months due to strict regulatory requirements and mandatory waiting periods.

3. What are the 7 steps in an RFP?

While frameworks vary, the seven distinct operational steps are:

1. Needs analysis: defining exactly what problem you are solving and what "success" looks like.
2. Drafting & requirements: writing the scope of work and separating "must-haves" from "nice-to-haves."
3. Vendor selection: identifying a long list of potential partners and whittling it down to a qualified short list.
4. Distribution: formally issuing the RFP and managing the initial invite process.
5. Q&A management: hosting a window for vendors to ask clarifying questions to ensure accurate proposals.
6. Evaluation & scoring: grading the proposals, viewing demos, and checking references.
7. Contracting & award: final negotiations, legal review, and signing the deal.

4. What is an RFP schedule?

An RFP schedule is the specific calendar application of your timeline. While the "timeline" describes the duration (e.g., "we need 3 weeks for evaluation"), the schedule assigns hard dates to those phases (e.g., "Evaluations are due by October 12th at 5 PM").

A rigid schedule is your best defense against project drag. It serves as an accountability contract between you and the vendors. If the schedule slides for one party (e.g., you delay the Q&A answers), it inevitably slides for everyone (vendors will demand a deadline extension).