S05E12: RFP Sales & Proposal Skills for LSPs

Intro

Hello and welcome to the Translation Company Talk, a weekly podcast show focusing on translation services and the language industry. The Translation Company Talk covers topics of interest for professionals engaged in the business of translation, localization, transcription, interpreting, and language technology. The Translation Company Talk is sponsored by Hybrid Lynx. Your host is Sultan Ghaznawi with today’s episode.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Translation Company Talk podcast. Today we are going to discuss RFPs and procurement processes that LSPs must know and learn. To discuss this important topic, I have invited Silja Korkko. Silja is an experienced professional in bid management, originally from Finland and now based in Madrid.

 

Silja is a certified foundation level member of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals or APMP, as it is known, and has extensive experience in directing and refining proposal processes and leading teams to produce high quality bids. Outside of her professional life, Silja enjoys spending her free time reading and taking long walks whenever she can step away from her busy family life.

 

Welcome to the Translation Company Talk, Silja!

Silja Korkko

Thanks, Sultan. Nice to be here.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Please introduce yourself and tell us what you do. The industry would like to know more about your background and about your career and professional aspirations.

Silja Korkko

Yeah, so I’m Silja and I’m based in Madrid, but I’m actually from Finland. So, I’ve been living here for quite a few years already, here in Spain, but originally from Lapland, so north of Finland. I work in bid management at Semantics. So, this is a very brief introduction because something else I have prepared for that next question for you.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

So, I was going to ask you, I’m interested to learn about your story of how you joined the language and localization industry. What drove you to this little unknown type of industry that now it’s becoming known? How was your journey so far?

 

Silja Korkko

It has been very adventurous, because as I said, I am originally from Lapland. So, it’s a very small village, a very remote village in Lapland where there were more reindeers than people, and still are. I was always, since a child, very interested in learning more about languages and learning more about other cultures.

 

So, I studied all the languages that was possible to study in my little school, in my little village. So English, German, Swedish and Russian. I wanted to really learn those languages and not only those languages, but also the culture so that I would, maybe later in my life, have a chance to go and explore the world.

 

So, years passed and I grew up and I actually applied to study in the university in southern part of Finland. I started learning translation sciences in Tampere, in southern part of Finland and then, of course, my passion grew more.

 

During my studies, I still didn’t know about the localization industry because maybe if you have studied translation in the university, the theory, at least back in those days, was not what the practical matters will be later on in your actual career. So, I didn’t really understand what localization industry was.

 

There were sometimes some visitors who came and said, OK, there are these things called LSPs and it was, of course, interesting, but I didn’t really understand what it was. During my studies, I also worked as an in-house translator for a pharmaceutical company for a little while, a couple of years.

 

I had these crazy dreams of, you know, becoming a United Nations interpreter or something like that, because it does sound very glamorous. I have a huge admiration to the interpreters who do that work because those guys really rock. I’ve seen them in conferences and some other places, and they are just amazing.

 

But that was not my career. So, in 2011, I moved to Spain. Here I actually got my first ever actual real life experience working in an LSP, in a very small one called Tech Translation in vendor management, but that one was quite short.

 

It was just a few months and then afterwards, I moved to an entirely other industries for seven years. So, engineering, water engineering and engineering in general. First as a project assistant slash translator, for a couple of years, that was an amazing experience because I got to use several languages, English, Russian, Spanish, because it was a part of a project with several languages.

 

Then I did a leap of faith, so to say, not in form of industry but in form of what I actually started doing, and that was bid management. I had absolutely no idea what bid management is. I think no one has before they really jump into that. So, I started working with bids, and this is the way, I think, most of the bid management professionals start.

 

I worked in that company for five years, bidding for multilateral, and public organizations around the world, Africa, Asia, Europe and there is where I really understood what bids are about.

 

Then I started missing the localization industry. I saw in 2018 that SDL was looking for someone for bid management ad I thought, you know, why not? This is the sign I can do both bid management that I already like, and also localization. So that was a perfect match, and I started.

 

I have been staying in localization industry ever since. So, SDL later became RWS, and now most recently I have been working in semantics.

 

Now an anecdote, because I started my journey saying, I was in a small Finnish village and I wanted to learn languages. It’s very anecdotal that now, one of the best parts of my work is that I can, actually, work in my native tongue, Finnish. Because I usually work in English and I live in Spain, so I rarely get to use my native tongue in my daily life. So, that’s very nice for me to now work in Finnish. That’s kind of like circling back to my roots. So that’s basically it.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

That’s an interesting story. Thank you for sharing your journey and your story about how you joined this industry. I’ve heard similar stories from other colleagues from Finland who had these big aspirations to explore the world, and they use the language as a mechanism to find out about the world and learn about it and go and have great adventures.

 

Tell us about significant and pivotal changes in the industry, Silja, that stood out to you and affected you in a certain way. I mean, something that you would consider as revolutionary, in a way that changed the localization world altogether.

 

Silja Korkko

Well, as I said, I spent quite a few years outside the localization industry, seven years. So, to me, I think that was the most mind blowing. I was away from the industry almost seven years from 2012 to 2018, I think, and when I came back, it sort of felt familiar, but still everything had changed so much.

 

Machine translation had taken a huge leap, translation management systems. I remember looking at the quality of MT and I thought, “how is this even possible?” The same with TMS, there were so many connectors and what not. So, I will definitely not stay away from the localization industry anymore, at least not that long ever again. Especially now.

 

Everything that used to take for years and years to develop is now just happening like it compressed in less and less time. So amazing. Now I’m going to now adventure outside our industry because we are talking about bid management. So, there also have been quite big changes there.

 

So, when I started with the bids, not many companies or organization had the possibilities to even submit anything electronically. So, it was like you now have to print ten copies of the technical proposal and five copies of the economic proposal and burn three CDs. Then you need to send it via courier or pitch and post or whatever you had back in the days.

 

There were some companies, back in the day who said, OK, there’s a portal. Asian Development Bank was, I think, one of the first ones. Then there were, of course, organizations that gave you the chance to send your bids via email, but not the majority.

 

Now most of the organizations and companies have portals or they at least give you the chance to send the proposals via email. Not only that, you can even give feedback about the portals to the client about how well they work. So, I think that’s quite nice for us in bids.

 

What I am also seeing is that in the bid management, artificial intelligence, that will also be a big thing. It already is part of some of the actual procurement processes. The client will use the AI at their end of the process. I am looking forward to see. I’m going to prepare my popcorn, so to say. It’s going to be an interesting thing.

 

I’m sure there will always be a human component in this. I see there are people in our bid management industry who say that, it will mean that maybe bid managers can do less bids and focus better. Then there are others who say that maybe bid managers will do more bids in less time. But whatever it’s going to be, it’s going to be a change.

 

I’m sure AI will at some point do the routine boring tasks, and what is going to be enhanced is the creative part of the process. This does remind me of another industry who has been having this kind of conversation for quite a long time. I think this is why we as the localization industry are much better prepared for what is coming in the future, than other industries, because now we have had this conversation about tools and machine translation.

 

Now it’s that many other sectors are currently having similar kind of conversations that we are already kind of familiar with. So, I’m very confident about the localization industry and our capabilities to adopt to this change.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Speaking of bids and bid management. Since you’re an expert in that area, we are meeting today to discuss RFPs and bids in the context of localization and what LSPs should know about them today. So, why don’t you give me a high-level view of how things work with procurement today?

 

Silja Korkko

Sure. So, basically, RFPs are a gateway for our organization, both public and private, to ask LSPs to send their best offer for the services that the client is looking for. So the RFPs, they outline the project requirements. What do they actually want? What’s the outcome that they want and how it’s going to be evaluated?

 

For us in LSPs, this means that we need to understand the RFPs, the needs of the client. We need to demonstrate how we can solve their problem and how can we be the best providers to offer the solution for them? So, it’s like a matchmaking game. So, we pitch our expertise and the clients seek the best fit.

 

So, in a way, I could say that RFPs are like dating apps of the organizations, or we could say that bid managers and bid management is taking job interviews for the whole company. So, we are doing the job interviews for the company in many cases. Not of course, all the business go via bids, but in those cases where it goes via bids, it’s us who are taking the job interviews.

 

There can be different types of organizations with different rules and legislation to follow, which sent RFPs private organizations, multilateral organizations. I already mentioned Asian Development Bank as an example. And then, of course, governmental institutions, because many different companies actually need the services that we provide in LSPs, and they can be different formats.

 

You might need to answer questions from the client, provide CVs, there’s translation, references, case studies, and in some cases, you have to answer questions from the client. In some cases, you do not get straight question answer form, but you get something that I call storytelling, that the client asked you to write about some items, but they have hidden it somewhere in the documents, and you have to find it there somehow. What is actually that you need to answer them.

 

Although all the proposals should be story telling ones. We have to tell a story for the client. So, all of these answers are then evaluated by the client and then they select the winner who will get the contract. In some cases, there can be several winners.

 

So, in essence, RFPs come in many shapes and many sizes. And even though there are patterns, each RFP is a world of its own. It depends.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

So, before we dive deeper into this, let me ask you a follow-up question, a general question. What’s the difference between RFPs, RFQs, RFIs? And I’m pretty sure there’s a bunch of other R-related abbreviations, requests for something.

 

Silja Korkko

Oh, and you forgot EOI, that is also used, expression of interest. So again, it depends. All of have different meaning. RFI, request for information, usually a marketing survey, like the client basically just wants to see what is out there, but not necessarily always.

 

Then RFP, request for proposal. More of a developed version of an RFI can be after client has published RFI, and then will also publish RFP.

 

Then RFQ, request for quotation, in which usually client will only ask for the price. But again, it depends. It depends on the client and the country and the conditions and consequences and everything.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

So, RFPs have been traditionally associated with government purchasing or procurement, but enterprises and large organizations also use this process, as you have mentioned to acquire products and services and, in our case, it could be translation or interpreting. How is the process different between private sector and public sector?

 

Silja Korkko

Well, basically in the private sector, RFPs, they focus on efficiency and innovation and more like a streamlined process of things and to meet specific business goals and timelines. The companies might prioritize things like cost effectiveness, quality, partnership, these kinds of things.

 

The decisions that private companies make, they’re quicker and more flexible and more dynamic. In the public sector, there are stricter regulations and transparency requirements. So, that process is emphasizing fairness, equal opportunity and compliance with legal frameworks.

 

So, as a rule of a thumb, I’d say that in the public sector, you need to tick all the boxes, in the way the client has asked. And in the private side, you have maybe a bit more freedom to recommend different alternatives and twist it a bit.

 

Not, of course, to say that in the public sector, you also cannot be creative and recommend things, but you need to find to do that and at the same time, tick the boxes.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

I’m sure there are a lot of LSPs who want to participate in RFPs and that process, submit their bids for certain RFPs that come out there. But they’re afraid of the bulk of information in the RFP documents. It looks very formal and legal to them. How can they get past that phobia?

 

Silja Korkko

That’s a good question. I’m sure many will agree with you, Sultan. My only advice is that you should think about the opportunities that this can bring to your company instead of focusing how scary it looks. Imagine that you actually win something via bidding, that could really be a game changer for your company, especially for those smaller LSPs.

 

Of course, before you start bidding, maybe you can have a look at the processes you have in the company and the people you have in the company and think where could this bidding fit in your company. It’s not necessarily that the bid management or bid manager has to be, at least in the beginning, full-time employed, but someone who already works in your company, and then you support that person, you give that person tools.

 

There are even associations for bid management, such as the Association of Proposal Management Professionals, APMP, or Shipley. So, you can train your employees via these kind of associations.

 

It’s also very important to identify what you want to bid on and where you want to bid on and go for quality and not for quantity. So, identify where you want to focus and start your bidding journey there. Once you have identified where you want to go and you have started bidding, then you might actually start seeing those patterns and understand the legal requirements and understand everything, other scary stuff becomes actually less scary because you’ve done it already. So, it’s learning by doing most of the things in life.

 

If you are super scared, and you still want to give bids a shot, you do not have to do it alone because there are several agencies and freelancers, bid managers, who support companies with bids. So, they can write bids for you, advise with bid process, train you, whatever is the best fit for your company. So there is that option as well.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Typical RFPs require things such as transmitter letter and executive summary and a bunch of components. What are the things that LSPs can focus for these parts of the RFP?

 

Silja Korkko

That’s also another funny and tricky and challenging question. So, transmitter letter, that I would actually call submittal letter, I think that should not be on top of your priority list, unless it’s something that is actually evaluated and you can get points from having an excellent submittal letter.

 

I think usually it’s enough to say, hello, it’s us, we are sending this letter, see you later in the technical proposal that you’re actually going to evaluate. Here is the thing that I also want to say, it’s not a requirement in the bids that you have to be boring. I recommend everyone, don’t start your submittal letter, even if it’s not evaluated with things like, we are pleased to submit this proposal, or we are grateful to be given this opportunity to present our company, or other kind of general formal yadda yadda.

 

The client will get several tenders and most of them will most likely have this kind of generic writing on them. So, why don’t you just say something in a clear way, and that means something in a clear language that you would usually use. This client will receive lots of proposals on their end, and it’s not some faceless corporate that is reading it, but it’s an actual real-life person. So, it’s not a machine, at least not yet, maybe in the future. But yes, clear and concise and not too formal language.

 

So, submission letter, don’t put your shots on that, but executive summary could be another case of its own. As the name already suggests, that’s for the executives that are actually making the decisions, calling the shots, and those guys are usually super busy. They don’t have the time to read a lot, so make it clear, super easy to read and super easy to grasp, and super easy for those executives to say yes to you, and does not hurt to make it attractive in a visual way as well. Very much in a nutshell.

 

Many of those questions that you have, Sultan, could be a whole podcast.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

I can understand. Absolutely. Speaking of the parts of the RFP, there are times when the RFP itself says, your format should be that you need to have this type of letter and executive summary and this component and that component. Almost every single RFP wants a technical component. Please explain what are the things that LSPs must describe in the technical proposal. Let’s talk about the format in general and then you can focus on the technical component.

 

Silja Korkko

I don’t think this is going to be a podcast question because you just do what they ask you. They tell you to choose Comic Sans that you absolutely hate and you will use it.

 

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Sultan Ghaznawi

While still sticking to the format, I have noticed in my very limited experience, that RFPs in general are expected to be boring, very rudimentary, not really styled. In a way that you’re looking at 1990s. It seems like that industry has not evolved out of the 90s, the way that Microsoft Word would prepare a document for you, back then. I see that very common for very large RFPs and in fact, they even ask for us to format it that way. Why is that?

 

Silja Korkko

That’s a tough question. In general, I don’t think this is a requirement, not in all of the cases at least, but of course if they ask you to use Comic Sans, font 12, you have to do it. It could be that the client has factors, such as they want to have a fair competition, that can be in the public sector for example and that is why they give everyone the same font and the same font size and even characters, or whatever they can give you as a limitation, so that everyone has a fair chance of winning it.

 

So that could be the case, but in in my opinion, it’s not a requirement or evaluated how boring can you be. That’s definitely not that. Many people do think that it is like that, but I think it’s not. It’s not even in the public proposals like that. There are some, of course, again, depends on what company or what public organization you are writing to.

 

There are some best practices that you can still use, even if they have given you these strict formalities that you have to follow. You can still use images. You can still use graphs. You can still use call out boxes and you have to find a way that work for you the best. As long as you stay in the limits that they have given.

 

Regardless of anything else, do not justify the text. That’s what I would not do. Nowadays most of the text is read from screens and if you justify the text, the readers eyes will get tired, and they will start hating you. They will start hating your proposal, and they will not evaluate well if they hate you and your proposal and they are already tired of reading all the text, from your justified piece of content.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Let’s go back to the components of the RFP. So, we were talking about the technical component. Please explain to me, Silja, what are the things that LSPs must describe in the context of language services and the technical proposal part of the RFP response?

 

Silja Korkko

Yeah, it depends. It can be and will be different for each bed. It depends on what you are bidding, to whom and when. It can be the actual technical. Or it can be how does the translation process work and those both can be called technical proposals, even though they are a bit different.

 

There’s something very evident that everyone would think that it’s super evident when you think about technical proposal or any part of the proposal, and that everyone really understands and everyone follows, regardless of how much experience you have. But I’m still going to say this.

 

Answer the question the client has asked and also, answer all the sub-questions that one question might have. If it’s a storytelling one, be super absolutely clear that you have answered all of the items that the client has wanted you to answer. This is as evident as it sounds, this is something that many will forget. You want to answer the client’s question. You don’t want to add anything else. Make it clear and make it concise language.

 

Many of our clients do not understand how our industry works. They find it super abstract. So, limit the use of industry jargon. Do not use it if you don’t really need to. Explain it like the client is a teenager or a child. The client will read many tenders and they don’t have the time to Google terms and try to guess what you are saying.

 

So, whatever your technical proposal or whatever part of the proposal you are writing about. Make it absolutely crystal clear what you are saying.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Silja, I think it’s the same issue with financial proposals. They are almost always required and sometimes separately than the main document. I mean, the whole thing revolves around how much something costs. So, they will ask for financial proposal. This part of the proposal is basically the bid or the quote for the work to be performed. What is important to be written here? How should we present that information?

 

Silja Korkko

You mentioned the rules and instructions at some point. I think it’s even more important here in the financial component of the proposal. So, always follow the rules from the client and do not deviate from them, because financial proposal, again, there is not anything general that I can say.

 

What I can say is follow the rules. If the instructions are unclear, ask about them. But still follow them. Because you ask about the logic, well, it can sound illogical to us, why the client has asked something like they have asked, but it could be something related to the evaluation process. Maybe they have several evaluators, or some even have some machines that they are using to do the pre-evaluation.

 

So even if it sometimes seems illogical to you that you need to follow some certain rules, do it anyway. If the rule says no financial information anywhere, then in the financial proposal, then do not put financial information anywhere else. Or you are actually risking the whole proposal that you have submitted.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Given the fact that RFPs have a good amount of similarity to each other. I mean, let’s say, especially for language services like translation or interpreting, what is the best way to create a framework for reuse and repurposing proposals?

 

Silja Korkko

This depends how much content you have to repurpose. The best way is create a content library, and the most asked questions that you’ve seen in the bids. There is where you can start it from. The way you choose to do it, it depends entirely what sort of tools you have that you can use. Whatever tools you use, remember to keep the proposal library fresh and crispy.

 

So, if you have that one shiny example RFP from a proposal that you delivered and one in 1995. I’m sorry, even if it was your, you know, masterpiece, it’s too old to use. There are plenty of tools in the market that can do this for you as well. If you have the money, of course. These tools will support you in creating that library. They are quite handy in supporting you.

 

The tool is as good as the content that you put in there. So, you put crap in, you get crap out, basically. But if you are interested, this is a good choice. If you want to look for one, you just have to Google bid management software or bid management tools and you’ll find plenty of options. We talked about the AI. And there are tools also, maybe most of the tools nowadays have AI integrated in them.

 

So, this space in bid management is becoming more interesting as we speak. There are, for example, AI tools that can write with the tone of your company, if you have a wide enough content library. The tool can learn from it and you can put a script on it, and they will write it for you. But of course, you will always have to do some reviewing and editing there.

 

In addition to the content library, you might also need a wider bid library, perhaps with other documents, certificates, CVs, whatever is relevant for the bids that you are focusing on. So yes, content library and wider bid library depending on your circumstances.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Silja, I’ve seen small RFPs that are five pages and humongous, large RFPs with 50 documents, each one containing 20 to 30 pages and a lot of it being irrelevant as you know. I’ve seen information contained about vehicles, uniform and so on and language services RFPs that were probably remnants from previous RFPs that were not taken out. How much time does a typical RFP on average takes to analyze and understand?

 

Silja Korkko

Tough question. This is like asking “how long is a piece of string?”. So, you cannot ever really say how long the analysis will take. Of course, if the document is shorter, well, the time should be shorter than reading a 50 pager. Still, sometimes it can be that the actual analysis and understand that even the five pages can take even more time, than actually reading the five pages.

 

So, you can read it quickly, and then you still haven’t understood what it said. You have to go back, and you have to analyze it, and you have to read it again, especially if the client has written it unclearly or does not understand our industry. Preparing the RFPs and your proposal and how much that time takes is not necessarily related to how long the actual documents take to analyse. You might spend twice the time preparing your answer to something that’s just five pages. So do not overlook the shorter bits. Don’t think that you have actually understood it. Read it again if you have a chance.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

I’m interested also in your personal approach to proposal writing. How do you do this? So, you receive an RFP. How do you read it? What’s the process for analyzing it?

 

Silja Korkko

Process, yes. It was funny when we started chatting on LinkedIn, Sultan, we started somehow talking about books. I think that’s one of the things that you have to have if you want to be able to write well. If you want to write well, you have to read a lot. I think that also goes for proposal writing.

 

I like to read a lot and I read novels. I very rarely read any business books, but I read novels where there are actual characters and they have their agenda and there are plot points. People have their own motives to do things. I think that is a good way to read proposals, RFPs in a way. Because our clients, just like the people in the literature, they are people who have their motive around how they behave. They want to accomplish something and it’s our job to try to understand what it is that they want to accomplish, and how can we help them accomplish their goals?

 

So, I actually think that approaching an RFP, like a novel plot, is not a bad plan. So, try to understand what’s the actual problem, and how can your company be the hero who finds the solution to this problem and that’s the basis of starting to write a bid.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Let me talk about the actual proposal itself. Now, when it comes to writing the proposal, what is your approach to starting from zero? What is that process like in terms of steps that you have to take from scratch to the point that you have something ready that you want to actually do a QA check before you send it to the client?

 

Silja Korkko

Yeah. So, writing it, of course, will take time. It will take a lot of time. But it’s even more important to have enough time to analyze and plan your proposal. This is my take. So, I quite often use as a first step a significant time in analyzing the documents and planning the answer and planning what should go there and what should I leave out.

 

This is even more important when you have these page limitations or word limitations. Although in general, I think the proposal should not be too long even if there is not page or word limit. So, the first step for me is just very thoroughly analyze and plan the RFP.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

So, basically, I was going to just ask a follow-up question. Do you create an outline of an RFP first before you create your actual proposal? So, for example, this information, you just map your answers to the main components of the RFP.

 

Silja Korkko

I think you always need to map that. That is the part that I called storytelling, that you need to map, what are the items that the client is looking for in the proposal? What do they want to see?

 

So, this is part of the analyzing and planning. After the planning you can actually check if you need support in writing and then go and find the right people to support you in the writing and start coordinating the writing part of the content. Then, and only then, the third step is to start writing and coordinate the writing and then you have a plan, you have the outline, then you have the people and review and such.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Okay, Silja, so let’s talk about documents such as certifications and insurance coverage, licenses and so on that RFPs require. How do you feel about releasing them, knowing that some of them will become public domain content afterwards?

 

Silja Korkko

Yeah and there are ways in some procurement processes to prevent this from happening. At least in some public bids, you can limit what parts of your bid can be made public. So, you can indicate that is what I do not want you to share with any everyone, by the way client.

 

At least in Europe there are some rules and regulations about this and about what the client can actually share. So, I’m not sure how it goes in Canada or in the U.S, but I think it’s not so black and white. It’s not like if you said everything is going to be a public domain, again you need to look into the bid and you need to look into the client and where you are working. I mean, in which country you are working, in my case, not all info will be made public.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Let’s go back to the format. I’m kind of obsessed about the format of the RFPs. Describe to me, Silja, the format, layout, and design of the document that you think would make an LSP stand out during the proposal review process. I’ve seen that typically proposals have, as I mentioned earlier, a boring old style of crass text and image combination and so forth. How can you become a little bit more different than others? Would you say that graphics, the color of fonts that you choose, the type of fonts, if you have that liberty, should the client allow you, would that make you stand out a little bit?

 

Silja Korkko

It could, and I think you should try it. As I said, there are some general best practices. You can use call-out boxes. You can use graphs and images and bolding and colors. Yet again, the best way to stand out is to understand what the client wants to see. So, know your client as much as possible, and then base your layout on that.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

During the RFP process, there is a Q&A period where all bidders submit their questions. I wanted to know, what is important to know here? How can you ask questions without giving away your position to the competition?

 

Silja Korkko

Yeah. To start with, do not do as I have actually seen a couple of times, the name of the company, the name of the contact person, the address, and then the question. I’ve seen it a couple of times and it still cracks me up.

 

If you are not familiar with the RFP process in general, just so that you know, the questions and their answers will be made public to all the bidders during the bidding process. So, any information like that I just mentioned, your address, your name, or any other information you put in your question will later be seen by your competitors.

 

So of course, you need to formulate your questions so that it cannot be tied to you. Perhaps you do not want your competitors to know that you are in the competition. They will find out later on that you were there, at least in the public bids, but no need to tell them while you are all busy crafting your response.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

I was going to ask you a follow up question related to that. A lot of RFPs discourage, or in fact prohibit the bidders from getting in touch with colleagues that work within that organization because they think it’s unfair and you have to follow a specific generic email address or contact and you’re not supposed to speak with anyone related to the RFP.

 

So, this Q&A is your only chance to get information or clarifications. What are other channels for finding out more about that RFP or information about it?

 

Silja Korkko

That’s basically the channel that you have to use during the procurement process ongoing. So, I have no hidden gem for this, unfortunately.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Okay. So, in closing, Silja, please share your thoughts on best practices to professionalize our industry and maintain a level playing field with RFPs and large-scale procurement.

 

Silja Korkko

Yeah. I think as an industry, it’s all our benefit to educate our clients. Quite often, there are procurement units that we deal with that, you know, today they are buying pencils, tomorrow they are buying printers, and the next day they are buying translation services

 

As I said previously, to many, our services tend to be very abstract and not very easy to understand. The procurement guys, they are also under lots of pressure, pressure of time and costs, and sometimes even public opinion.

 

So, the more they know about our services, the better they understand how they can buy from us. They will submit better RFPs, which will save us time and unnecessary questions and then we don’t have to try to guess what is the client actually looking for. So, I think to me, this is the thing for us in the industry, in educating the clients and educate them in a clear way so that it’s understandable for them. I think that’s the thing for us as industry.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

What an interesting and engaging conversation about a topic that can be dry at times, but honestly, this topic doesn’t get enough coverage in the localization circles. Given that you live and breathe RFPs and proposals, I think you added a significant value to our industry today.

 

I also want to give you a shout out to Seamus Said from Interpreters Unlimited in the US, who recently covered this topic with me and with his perspective within the US market. So, it is a nice segue to your interview. So, basically, I have the European and the American perspectives on RFPs.

 

With that, let me thank you for sharing your experience and wisdom with me and the industry. And I cannot wait to speak with you again on this podcast on a related topic.

 

Silja Korkko

Sounds good. Thanks, Sultan, for having me as a guest.

 

Sultan Ghaznawi

Okay, it’s time for my roundup of the interview and my analysis as to what has been discussed. My conversation with Silja today reminded me of extensive debates I’ve had with colleagues who study sales and procurement. Language services companies or LSPs are used to being responsive to their customer industries and those that delve into RFP and procurement activities tend to do very well.

 

Acquiring, analyzing, responding to, and becoming an expert in the government or large-scale enterprise procurement is not for the faint of heart and requires a certain talent and attitude to achieve results. LSPs that make the mistake of copying other LSPs’ RFPs responses, typically don’t do well.

 

Colleagues on the procurement side all operate in very small communities and LSPs quickly risk a negative reputation when they tend to submit proposals that are copies of others or try to undermine other LSPs with aggressive pricing. It is a delicate balance between being unique and being part of the community that must be reflected in your proposal.

 

That was a great conversation with Silja Korkko, who is a leading expert in large-scale procurement and bid management within the language industry. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with her and plan to invite her for further conversations about subjects related to today’s topic.

 

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Translation Company Talk podcast on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, Audible, or your platform of choice and give this episode a 5-star ranking.

 

Until next time!

 

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