RFP, RFQ and RFI

These three documents are how organisations shop for software and services in a controlled, comparable, defensible way. Choosing among them — and writing the right one — determines whether you get a negotiated solution or a page of prices.

What It Is

An RFI (Request for Information) asks the market broadly: who does what, what approaches exist — used early, to learn. An RFP (Request for Proposal) asks selected vendors to propose a solution to defined requirements, evaluated on methodology, fit, and price together. An RFQ (Request for Quotation) asks for pricing against a precisely specified item, where the requirements are already fixed and vendors compete mainly on cost. The progression RFI → RFP → RFQ mirrors decreasing uncertainty: from 'what is possible' to 'how would you solve it' to 'what does this exact thing cost'.

Why It Matters to You

The document you issue shapes the answers you get. An RFP issued with immature requirements produces confident-sounding proposals built on guesses — and the risk lands on you at delivery. Procurement teams love RFQs because they are easy to score; vendors love them too, because a fixed specification with gaps gets monetised through change orders later. The executive's leverage point is matching document to certainty: RFI while the problem is still being understood, RFP once requirements are real, RFQ only when the specification is genuinely complete. Public-sector-adjacent organisations (and many enterprise buyers) also require this paper trail for audit — an undocumented sole-source award is a governance finding.

When You'll Meet It

At the start of vendor selection. You will sign off which instrument is being issued and, later, chair or sponsor the evaluation that follows.