COEPD – Center of Excellence for Professional Development Happy Learning
Request For Information (RFI) is a formal business process which should contain the information regarding the suppliers capability. This document is produced by the suppliers/vendors in writing to the businesses. This is generally requested at the planning stage of procurement used in selection process and it is considered as a qualification step prior to request for proposal (RFP) or request for quotation (RFQ). RFI will also include elements of an RFQ.
RFI has a number of clearly defined sections and these sections often contains both mandatory and non-mandatory questions with options to suppliers to attach the relevant documents where and when required. After uppliers submitting their responses, the buyer will evaluate them based on the information furnished by the sellers and quantify them for further rounds of RFP. The information gathered in RFI are vendor financial status, Technical capabilities, distribution of network, quality controls and so on.
RFI is performed as per the below process:
• A questionnaire is prepared by the buyer for gathering supplier details.
• Supplier will respond to the questionnaire by filling it.
• Based on the responses buyer will compare and quantify the suppliers for further rounds.
At times there are multiple rounds to qualify suppliers.
RFI is generally used to:
• To obtain relevant information pertaining to your project by posing customized questions.
• Gather information about a supplier, a service or a product.
• Quantify the supplier for subsequent RFP or RFQ rounds.
Request For Information will be the first interaction between suppliers and the buyer where the buyer invites the suppliers to introduce themselves, their company and what are they trying to achieve through RFI.
