Held back by legacy, not led by AI
Before SiftHub, Sirion had been using legacy RFP automation software that came with a lot of limitations – the chief among them being the lack of AI capabilities.
“We encountered some challenges in getting everything we hoped for,” Ujjwal Bhardwaj, Vice President of Presales at Sirion, explained, “It seemed there were some gaps between what was promised and what could be delivered.”
Sirion had roughly 7500+ Q&A pairs, which quickly grew to over 10,000 pairs – to update each pair manually became a monumental task. “We either had to download the entire Q&A bank, make changes, and re-upload it, or go through the painful process of assigning each pair individually to an owner and reviewer. Either way, it was monotonous and time-consuming.”
The same import-export process had to be followed when filling in RFPs as well. “Adoption became a challenge, especially with other stakeholders needing to come in to review answers. We’re a Microsoft shop, and no one really wanted to work inside another tool to get things done. ”
As an AI-first organization, Sirion was looking for a partner who would match their forward-thinking mindset to embrace GenAI in their product.
An AI-first solution for a modern presales team
“The speed at which the SiftHub team understood our challenges, and the efficacy of how their tool addressed these challenges, was impressive! The product continuously evolved, and any feedback provided was immediately incorporated.”
After a thorough period of trial, Sirion implemented SiftHub for its entire presales team. Here are some of the ways the team uses the platform:
- To generate accurate first drafts of RFPs quickly, leaving more time for reviews and approvals
- To ensure dynamically up-to-date and relevant responses are generated by controlling the sources used through Collections
- To access information and adjust responses for tone and language easily from right where they work via the Browser Extension
The team is also working on being able to analyze and assess the fit of incoming RFPs and make sure only high-quality, qualified deals are being taken up with the help of SiftHub’s AI Teammate.
“We've found that vendors are usually very engaged and helpful before a sale, but then their responsiveness tends to decrease afterward. This was definitely not the case with SiftHub. Through Microsoft Teams, we get 24/7 support. If ever we encounter bugs, they’re taken up and resolved as soon as possible with 100% transparency on the progress.” Ujjwal said.
The Impact
“In my ten years at Sirion, we’ve never missed a deadline.” Ujjwal shared, when asked about the efficiency impact he’d seen since his team started using SiftHub, “Be it Q&As, acknowledgements, or submissions, we’ve never been late. But I can say that if we didn’t have SiftHub over the last few months, that record might have been broken.”
- 1.5x increase in the number of RFPs handled per month: Thanks to SiftHub, the Sirion team has more bandwidth and has been able to pick up more RFPs. The team is now handling close to 40-45 RFPs per month, submitting an average of 2 RFPs per working day.
- Cut 48 hours across SLAs for RFPs: Despite the complexity of RFPs increasing, and the number of RFPs handled per month going up, the team has been able to not only meet all their submission deadlines but have done so while decreasing their overall turnaround times. “48 hours is a lifetime when it comes to an RFP. Thanks to this, we’ve been able to accommodate a lot more ‘fringe’ questionnaires that come in at the last minute.”
“Another big impact we’ve seen, which is at least partially thanks to SiftHub, is the improvement in our down-select rate – namely, the rate of how often we advance to the next deal stage post-RFP submission. From the industry average of 65%, we’ve seen this rate go up to 90%+ in the last few months.” Ujjwal revealed.
Would Sirion recommend SiftHub to others?
“I’m a huge advocate for SiftHub! GenAI-based tools in the market can have a lot of the same features, but there are two major differentiators: ease of use of the tool and how responsive the service provider team is, or how agile they are. That’s where SiftHub really shines and it’s why I would recommend SiftHub, and not any other platform.”
