IP Telephony Request For Proposal (RFP) Template

The following list was created for use as a template for the development of an RFP for IP telephony based systems, including a provision for a contact center project. An effective RFP should include a description of the project's time tables and plans, how vendors should respond, a complete and detailed statement of anything financial, a detailed description of the proposed system's structure and how it would be safeguarded, technical descriptions of the required voice and contact center's capabilities, a solid definition of how the proposed system would interact with other software products, the features and capabilities of the end user's IP phone and desktop computer related functions, a thorough discussion of the capabilities of a hosted system if proposed, and extensive information about how the new system will be run and managed. The sample template contains 11 sections as follows:

Table of Contents

• Section 1.0 Executive Summary
  
  
• Section 2.0 Proposal Response Items
  
  
• Section 3.0 Financial
  
  
• Section 4.0 System Architecture – Composition
  
  
• Section 5.0 System Architecture – Stability
  
  
• Section 6.0 Voice Communications
  
  
• Section 7.0 Contact Center – Multimedia Handling
  
  
• Section 8.0 Interactions
  
  
• Section 9.0 The Desktop and IP Phones
  
  
• Section 10.0 Hosted Providers
  
  
• Section 11.0 Operations and Management
  
  

The following pages show the main subsections for each of the primary RFP sections. The full, detailed document (not shown) covers an additional 500 items that fall under these subsections plus 150 more questions that should be asked of any system provider before procuring their hardware and software.

Further Training

These types of tips, insights and useful business materials can be found in all training classes and consultations provided by McGuire Consulting. The high quality nature of such information is based on the many years of work and training experience of the author, Jay D. McGuire.