(Or, 60 Key Considerations for Finding a Solution That Will Delight Your End Users)
By Cyndie Zikmund, Group Manager, End-User-Computing Product Marketing, VMware
RFP Writing Is Not for the Fainthearted
Writing a comprehensive Request for Proposal (RFP) can take a long time. Many organizations hire consultants to perform the task for them. A well-designed RFP provides your organization with the opportunity to recruit the best possible vendors for a particular project. Determining the appropriate selection criteria, the priority of each criterion, and the overall objective of the project can take weeks of research, meetings, and technical evaluations. Asking potential vendors to provide detailed information early can save your organization a lot of money and headaches in the future.
There Must Be a Better Way
The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) developed the writing guide Key RFP Considerations for Desktop and Application Virtualization Solutions to help specify the requirements most critical to your organization when you create an RFP in support of virtual desktop and application delivery. Although writing RFPs can be a daunting task, it becomes easier when goals and requirements are clearly defined and organized to match business and technology solutions. Understanding the short- and long-term goals as well as the unique requirements of your organization helps you create an RFP that serves as an important tool for use in your decision-making process.
It Is All About People, Process, and Technology
The ESG RFP Writing guide is organized around creating and organizing business and technology goals. The goal of business mobility is to create workspaces that improve IT control, enhance employee experience, and mitigate security risks. When employees have the ability to access their applications anytime, anywhere, and on any device, employee satisfaction and productivity improves. It is also important to note that the concept of business mobility extends beyond traditional remote access to email and a few SaaS applications to include hybrid consumption models, user-based policy management, and secure access.
After you establish some initial high-level goals, the next question is: How can you best achieve these goals and map technology to these initiatives? Workspace transformation with virtual desktops and applications offers employees the access that they require, but choosing among a wide range of solutions can be an arduous task. This is because desktop and application experience depends on multiple factors that include
- Product quality
- Product flexibility
- Feature completeness
- Quality of support
- Future product innovation
A solution that delivers on only a few of these factors can leave you and your users disappointed and make it more difficult to obtain approval for future projects. A solution that continues to innovate and deliver on every factor leaves the business and employees delighted and opens up new possibilities.
This all-important guide is organized into three sections:
- People – Focused on user experience and productivity
- Process – Process mapped to business goals and supported by technology
- Technology – The underpinning architecture that includes core elements for success
The ESG RFP Writing guide is easy to use, provides valuable insight, and does much of the work for you.
Download your copy of the Key RFP Considerations for Desktop and Application Virtualization Solutions today!
