Our workplace experts and our IT project managers give you their perspective and templates to create an RFP for workplace data, to ensure you get proposals that fit your project.

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RFP cover letter template

RFP response template

This “RFP Guide” takes you through the basics to create an RFP for your workplace data project. One of the main reasons enterprise information technology projects fail or don’t satisfy the project owners and stakeholders: a poor translation of larger, company or functional objectives, all the way down to solution requirements. This often happens even when governing the project through the steps of RFIs and RFPs and pilots.

However, our experience at Locatee has provided us with a large knowledge of such exercises and we have observed that a solid project definition oftentimes leads to better outcomes with the solution selection. 

Start creating your RFP for workplace data with big picture objectives

Regardless of what the specific goals for creating an RFP for workplace data are (Workplace experience, space planning, office occupancy etc.), the project is necessarily a part of a larger scheme:

• Company goals
• Company environment (competition, business model, strategy)
• How this translates into Corporate Real Estate and Workplace 

This should inform the requirements and the choice of supplier. It should influence elements in the RFP that require the input of other internal stakeholders.

Workplace strategy

Of course, the larger company context should stream seamlessly into the more specific workplace strategies that are most likely to have triggered the project in the first place.

Example: Searching for an analytics platform that combines workplace experience feedback and sentiment with more passive data such as space utilization from network, sensors or badge data. 

In the context of creating the RFP as well as for suppliers to properly define their proposals, it is relevant to understand what objectives drive this search: 

• To improve employee retention (company objective)
• Positive employee experience in the office (workplace objective)
• Higher attendance rates in the offices (workplace key result)

Main drivers

The workplace strategies that are at the core of the project can then be formulated in clearer goals or even key performance indicators, that are really framing the expectations for the solution that is desired.

This defines how the success of the project will be measured:

• ROI
• Total cost of ownership
• Space/costs/energy optimizations and savings
• Return to office KPIs
• Employee engagement and satisfaction KPIs
• Etc.

Example: If ROI or ESG are the main driver for the success of the project, a supplier may orient their response in a certain direction – towards cost of the project, costs/energy optimization results and scalability of the proposed solution.

On the other hand, if workplace experience and return to office are key drivers, the suppliers may look to adapt their proposals to maximize granularity and coverage. 

Project use cases

Within this broader context, the actual use cases of the project can be formulated. A use case is, to simplify, the scenario in which the solution is useful – to solve a problem, to generate desired outcomes.

Formulating use cases allows to:

• Clearly express how the solution is expected to be used, 
• Define in what situations the solution will be used
• Define clearly the solution’s expected results.

Example: There is a large difference between requesting a booking system only to give employees the possibility to book and release office spaces, and requesting a booking system that also enables directional signage, heatmaps and serves as a basis for occupancy data. 

Requirements

Based on your project use cases, your requirements will be broken down into several categories:

• Use cases: description of what the solution must or may allow you to do
• Functionality (derived from the use cases): description of the scope, features and qualities required to enable the use cases
• Implementation: description of criteria or constraints for implementation
• Technology: attributes of the solution’s technology
• Integration: required integration of the solution to internal or external systems and technologies
• Reporting and dashboards: required qualities of the customer-facing interfaces
• Commercials: required elements of the commercial proposal
• Support: required elements of support from the vendor
• Non-functional requirements: requirement that specifies criteria that can be used to judge the operation of a system, rather than specific behaviours
• Vendor information
• Costs/pricing

You may not be expected to know how to define the elements in all these categories. For instance, technology attributes and non-functional requirements may be provided by your IT team. Consult with the end-users of the solution, the decision maker(s), IT, finance, procurement and legal to finalize the requirements.

Structure

Your RFP should include the following elements:

• Project letter (includes company objectives, workplace strategy, main drivers, use cases and summary of capabilities) – see template
• Timelines (RFP timeline and planned project timeline)
• Vendor response template (including capabilities and financial response template)
• Vendor questions log template

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