Turn the RFP scramble into a system
By Mohammed Buhariwala · 2026-08-05
The hidden cost of the scramble
Most professional firms respond to opportunities the same way: a deadline appears, senior people drop billable work, and a proposal gets assembled against the clock. It works, but it's expensive in the least visible way, the time of the people you most want on client work, spent re-writing the same sections and chasing the same information.
The real cost isn't the proposals you send. It's the ones you don't, because the scramble means you can only respond to a fraction of what comes in.
From effort to engine
The shift is to treat responding as a repeatable system rather than a heroic effort. A well-built one drafts and structures the response, pulls in the right prior material, and scores each opportunity so the team spends its energy only on the ones worth winning. Senior people move from writing first drafts to sharpening final ones.
The outcome we look for is straightforward: respond to more of the right opportunities, faster, without adding headcount. What you gain isn't just speed, it's the capacity to say yes to things you used to let pass.
Stop letting good opportunities pass because the response is a fire drill. See how we build RFP and qualification systems.
mohammed@scaleitupmedia.co.uk · LinkedIn · YouTube