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How long is a piece of string? Need a bit more context: Industry? RFP timeline? Type of RFP (product launch, new audience, multi-phase, integrated, digital only, etc.)
If you work at FCB it takes approx. 32 people for a $1M RFP
It’s more for students. I’m trying to give them a sense of how many hands on deck and investment of time and resources are necessary. Some seemed to think they could respond to an RFP solo; others that two or three partners could handle something that size.
Sounds like a practical exercise. If so, I’d give them three different scenarios for this $1 million RFP so they can see that it’s not the size of the prize that matters, but the underlying business problem to be solved. Depending on the scenarios, different specialists may be needed in addition to a core group of account, strategy, creative, media, data, production and eCommerce practitioners. Research may be needed, along with CX/UI/UX, prototyping, ans developers.
For a standard creative RFP, assuming you’re not writing the very first one entirely from scratch and this is the only thing you’re working on, it takes 1-2 people roughly two days to map it out and gather answers and identify holes in the response. Ignoring the reality of people’s schedules, another day to get the new answers to fill in holes, 1-2 days of design work (assuming something not totally customized) and then 1-2 days of executive feedback.
In my opinion, that process is already bloated by executive feedback. Much of which often comes from leaders who aren’t fully engaged with the context of the RFP. And since the real world means people aren’t immediately available, RFPs routinely take 5-15 business days to complete, despite the timeline I mentioned above.
I’ve absolutely done RFPs bigger than $1M by myself (with the exception of confirming timing with production) from soup to nuts in a week.