Previously, the de facto approach to categorizing new sales technology was lumping it in with CRM. But today’s sales professionals require more – they need a robust set of sophisticated tools to engage with the increasingly savvy customer. In recent years, Sales Enablement applications have proliferated the digital selling market, and while they have helped sales professionals reach customers in new ways, they have led to a massive app overload and workflow interruption. 

Sales professionals need a better strategic and streamlined approach to selling digitally, and Sales Enablement Platforms are the answer. Sales Enablement has emerged as one of the fastest growing markets focused on equipping sales representatives, sales managers, and marketers with the necessary tools to engage with prospects and customers in an all-digital fashion. The reason why these platforms are so valuable is that they offer the potential to eliminate the fractured state of sales tools and provide a complete Digital Selling environment. 

The RFP process is one of the best ways to ensure successful procurements. It gives all your bidders the same view of exactly what you want, so they can accurately calculate their costs and make their proposals responsive. By providing a common form and format for all the responses, with a consistent framework to compare them in, an RFP gives you more confidence that what you buy will meet your needs. 

Introduction

Aragon Research is publishing this guide to help buyers write effective requests for proposals (RFPs) and requests for information (RFIs) for Sales Enablement Platforms (SEPs). 

This book is divided into two parts. This section, Part I, is addressed to you, the buyer, who is setting out to write an RFP. It explains some of the ways you can use an RFP to make your procurement financially safe and technically satisfying. 

Because RFPs are legally binding and financially consequential, but can also be technically intricate, repetitive and tedious to create, we have compiled the content of a typical RFP for Sales Enablement software, which is contained in Part II. As an Aragon Research client, you are free to copy and paste this content into your own RFP template and then customize it to fit your specific situation. If you have never done an RFP before, work with your legal and financial staff to develop the rest of the necessary content. 

In Part II, everything that is not in italics is intended to be part of your actual RFP and is addressed to the vendors you send it to. The material in italics is for you, the buyer. Be sure to remove everything in italics before sending the RFP to bidders.