What you’ll learn

• Why upgrading from RFP software to a Strategic Response Management (SRM) platform amplifies the value of response content across multiple teams 
• How to make quick and accurate go/no-go decisions with Requirements Analysis
• How to responsibly use AI Assistant for optimal response efficiency and impact
• Advantages of integrated use of AI on an SRM platform

The rundown

JAGGAER’s response challenge

• As a technology-forward company that provides AI capabilities in its own solutions, JAGGAER wanted to take advantage of GenAI efficiency in SRM.
• Due to Content Library size, maintaining consistent messaging and voice across multiple external information requests strained subject matter experts (SMEs) and other responders.
• Former RFP response software restricted user access to content, adding an insurmountable barrier to adoption and scalability.
• Too much time was spent on RFPs that were unwinnable.

Impact and results

• AI efficiency touches every cross-functional use case:
  • SMEs: Crafting initial drafts or complete answers for proposals.
  • Proposal professionals: Changing voice from passive to active by clicking a button.
  • Bid managers: Automating collaboration and identifying the most relevant answers for response.
  • Revenue teams: Maintaining one consistent voice across all responses.
  • Responsive administrator: Moderating content to maintain library efficiency.

• Higher win rate: Double-digit increase in win rate is equal to roughly 15 times JAGGAER’s Responsive investment.
• Rapid ROI: JAGGAER realized ROI within three months of upgrading from their previous RFP software provider to the Responsive SRM Platform.
• Improved decision-making: No-bid rate increased as a result of JAGGAER developing a consensus around which opportunities are worth pursuing based on Requirements Analysis results.

Why upgrading from RFP software to an SRM platform amplifies the value of response content across multiple teams

JAGGAER develops procurement technology for many industries, including manufacturing, higher education and banking. Content proposal specialist Autumn Wenner and her RFx team respond to large, complex RFPs that may encompass a full suite of JAGGAER’s solution offerings. They also respond to RFIs, RFQs, best-and-final-offer (BAFO) requests, and technology questionnaires (TQs). The RFx team was using another RFP software, but cracks in the facade started to form given the volume and complexity of response types.

Responses to every external request require input and review from multiple teams across the organization. Autumn relied on product, marketing, sales, presales, legal and cybersecurity teams to create and review responses. However, the prior RFP software restricted user access to the response content library. This access constraint meant that collaboration and project management had to take place in other applications, and content could not be reliably centralized. The frustrating results: no reusable content, many manual content moderation steps and a lack of visibility into their Strategic Response Management (SRM)  — an organizational approach to responding to complex information requests with unprecedented speed and the latest, most compelling content to win more business.

Upper leadership at JAGGAER suggested Responsive through our integration partnership. Autumn quickly discovered that not only could Responsive fill in the gaps left by her previous RFP software, it could level up response strategy and value for the organization. The first step was to have Responsive Professional Services migrate JAGGAER’s response content library. The migration included cleanup, user training and practice projects prior to launching live projects.

After using Responsive for a year, user adoption tripled over the previous RFP software. “We had 85 user seats with our previous RFP software solution. To date, we have 240 active JAGGAER users working inside Responsive,” Autumn said. “In 2023, our RFx team managed 346 RFx and TQ projects and answered over 50,000 questions inside Responsive.”

Autumn encouraged engagement with the platform through:

• Recording Microsoft Teams training to onboard new employees.
• Creating an internal SharePoint site that hosts guides, training videos and links to Responsive Academy.
• Empowering SMEs to run Responsive reports so they can see the real-time impact of their content contributions.
• Assigning sales account teams as primary contacts on projects so they can follow each project to completion.

How to make quick and accurate go/no-go decisions with Requirements Analysis

Requirements Analysis is AI-powered document shredding technology that allows teams to quickly analyze complex information requests, including RFPs, to understand if they are a good fit for your company. Before using it, there were instances where multiple teams at JAGGAER worked on a proposal for two weeks before they realized that some small detail automatically disqualified them from winning the RFP.

Now, running Requirements Analysis is the first step every bid manager takes before putting any time into a response or engaging SMEs in a proposal. Responsive AI learns from their Content Library to identify red flags that would prevent them from winning an RFP, helping them in three big ways.

1. Sales, presales, SMEs and other response stakeholders no longer waste time on unwinnable bids.
2. Win rate increases because time that had been lost on unwinnable RFPs can now be dedicated to improving the quality of winnable RFPs.
3. Confidence in the RFx team and the Responsive Platform grows. There’s nothing more frustrating than dedicating several hours to a project that never sees the light of day. When teams know that the opportunity they’re responding to is better qualified and winnable, they do their best work.

“We’re seeing that Requirements Analysis is saving time immensely. It prevents us from getting to the point where 10 people are working on a project before we find a detail that tells us we shouldn’t have even started bidding on this.”  

— Autumn Wenner, Content Proposal Specialist at JAGGAER

How to responsibly use AI Assistant for optimal response efficiency and impact

JAGGAER was an early adopter of Responsive AI Assistant, which enables them to respond to questions with pre-authored “best of” answers from past responses or generate original responses in seconds using built-in prompts. Once a response is generated, users can refine it even further by selecting functions such as “Rewrite,” “Concise” or “Make More Readable” from a dropdown menu.

JAGGAER solutions include AI — both machine learning and natural language processing. But the team didn’t consider leveraging its own AI experience to build a solution for the RFx team in-house. “While we have significant expertise with AI technologies, we are applying that technology to procurement use cases and our development team is exclusively focused on our customers,” Autumn said. “We rely on our vendors to continuously invest in their solutions, improve their products and leverage AI.”

Getting the green light

Because they are an AI-forward technology provider, JAGGAER pounced on the opportunity to explore AI Assistant as soon as they learned about it.

First, Autumn walked through a demo of AI Assistant. Second, she set up a meeting between Responsive and leads from JAGGAER’s cybersecurity, legal and cloud ops departments to address any concerns live and in real time. Responsive AI Assistant is trained from JAGGAER’s Content Library, and none of that information is exposed to the public GPT or Internet — which helped alleviate all privacy, security and compliance concerns.

Best practices for a successful AI Assistant rollout

After a quick implementation, Autumn began testing and using AI Assistant. Again, she created a SharePoint site to support training and onboarding. It included a set of FAQs and the most recent AI Assistant roadmap provided by Responsive.

It also included descriptions of the built-in prompts included with AI Assistant, such as:

• Rewrite: Rephrases original query; valuable for comparing and contrasting responses
• Elaborate: Lengthens response
• Concise: Shortens response
• Make More Readable: Rephrases response so it’s readable for a wider audience
• Make It Plain: Replaces highly technical or complex language with more common terms
• Passive to Active: Automates transition to active voice for better response voice consistency

JAGGAER first rolled out AI Assistant to the RFx, presales and sales teams before making it available to the global user community.

Immediate impact of AI Assistant

Responsive AI Assistant provided instant value to JAGGAER, especially for content moderation and creating responses.

“I’ve bought in 100%. When content gets added to the library by an SME, I filter it through AI Assistant first to maintain a consistent voice in our Content Library,” Autumn said.

Advantages of integrated use of AI on an SRM platform

JAGGAER has proven to be an SRM leader through its integrated use of Responsive AI:

1. Requirements Analysis shreds RFPs so response teams can quickly determine whether they can submit a winnable bid.
2. Auto-response completes an average of 20 percent of all questionnaires on its own.
3. AI Assistant streamlines content moderation and response creation.
4. Reporting functions capture the data output from all of this activity to provide insight on content development, headcount planning and revenue attribution.

While embracing AI is a competitive necessity for JAGGAER, it’s not a panacea. It only works so well in Responsive because of all the other capabilities of the SRM platform. On a recommendation to other companies about the value of an SRM platform: