A response and content management tool helps teams store and organize information to respond to RFPs. But a well-managed content library can go far beyond the RFP team and serve as a resource across the company. The content library can be an organizations’ source of truth for accurate, up-to-date information, which is valuable to every member of the team.
Read on to learn how your response solution can help teams across departments.
RFP & Response Teams
Most response solutions are built – as the name would imply – with RFP and response teams in mind. In addition to content management, many of these tools have specific functionality to help RFP teams with their unique challenges such as managing SMEs and dealing with DDQs.
Manage Content
At its core, a response and content management tool helps teams organize and store content. Most tools will have a system to label or sort content for easy searching and filtering. This helps RFP teams keep track of the vast amounts of information they hold and allow them to easily deploy that information to respond to RFPs.
Additionally, response tools can help RFP teams manage approvals, review cycles, and other workflows to ensure that content is always up-to-date and compliant.
Coordinate with SMEs
Working with SMEs (subject matter experts) is often one of the greatest challenges faced by RFP teams, requiring a delicate balance of relationship management, organization, and (often) managing up.
A response tool helps teams stay organized to make sure that they are not asking for the same information multiple times from the same SME. Additionally, content expiration dates and notifications will automate reminders to SMEs.
Respond to Recurring Questionnaires
Many RFP teams are tasked not only with completing RFPs aimed at winning new business, but also managing DDQs and ongoing questionnaires that are vital to retaining business.
Answering DDQs quarter after quarter can be incredibly time-consuming, but leveraging a response solution can help teams answer them quickly by pulling the content from a consistent database. Additionally, response tools often have features that will auto-fill and sometimes even auto-update questions to the most recent content.
Sales & Proposal Teams
Beyond the RFP team, a response tool can be an incredibly valuable asset to sales and proposal teams. Sales teams are often in search of quick answers and updated materials to send to prospects, which a content library can provide.
Access Accurate, Up-to-Date Information
A response tool with a well-managed content library allows sales teams to always have correct and current information at their fingertips. Whether they are looking for marketing collateral or security information, an easy-to-use library is great for sales teams to answer prospect questions or provide additional information about their product or company.
Generate Proposals
A powerful feature that some, but not all, response tools offer is the ability to generate proactive proposals using the information from the content library. These proposal builders take the curated content from the content library and format it into branded, shareable proposals. This can save sales and proposal teams hours of tracking down up-to-date language and formatting.
Marketing Teams
A response and content management tool can help companies standardize content across departments. For the marketing team, this can be a powerful asset for brand consistency.
Brand Consistency
Marketing teams work hard to establish a company’s voice and tone. An important part of brand building is ensuring that this voice and tone is used consistently across teams.
When a company uses a response tool as their source of truth for content, marketing teams can ensure that voice and tone is consistent throughout every department. From company overviews and bios to up-to-date presentations and one pagers, a response tool can store all of the content and collateral that the marketing team produces.
Security Teams
Security teams hold a lot of valuable information that is important to prospects. Leveraging a response tool allows security teams to easily store, manage, and deploy that information.
Share Information
When security teams store their information in a response tool, it not only helps them keep that information updated and organized, but provides easy access to other teams. For instance, if a salesperson is on a call with a prospect who has a security question, they can easily look it up in the content library without having to track down security team members. This saves time for both teams and ensures that the prospect receives a quick, correct answer.
Autofill Responses
Similar to RFP teams, security teams often have to deal with repetitive questions and recurring security questionnaires. Response tools provide the ability to autofill responses at the click of a button, saving security teams hours.
Consistency & Time Savings Across Departments
From sales to marketing to security, a response and content management tool can be a valuable business asset across departments and teams. By leveraging a content library as the company’s single source of truth, organizations can ensure that they are consistent and on-brand. Perhaps more importantly, every team member knows exactly where to find the information they need.
Ready to implement a response tool at your company?
RocketDocs’ response and content management tool goes well beyond the RFP team and provides benefits to teams across your organization. Request a demo today to get started!
