Tips to Write a Mobile App RFP

What does RFP Refer To?

RPF stands for Request for Proposal, which acts as the way of speaking for a company in front of its prospective collaborators. This is more like a synopsis of all the essential requirements for a mobile particular project.

This can be taken as a mobile app business plan document that can help one in identifying the most adept app developers India or that of any other corner of the globe.

What’s the vitality of getting an RFP?

Well, be it the beginning of your first mobile app development project or be it the modernization of an existing product, you need to fill out a mobile app RFP document. 

There are many scenarios, where your company finds it hard enough to perform the holistic execution of the project internally. Naturally, in these cases, your business requires to hire app development services and to do so, you typically prefer to look around.  A clear mobile app RFP enables you to gather proposals from different vendors. Eventually, it helps in picking up the right development hand that suits the requirement of your project at its level best, in terms of budget as well as experience. 

Top Tips for Writing a Fantastic RFP

• Describing the Project’s Strategy and Concept
  • Describe about your company and what it does.
  • Explain about the products and services that your company deals withand the process of the workflow.
  • Explain the business case that the mobile app is going to address, mentioning the relevant solution.


• Project Description
  • Describe the project’s vision.
  • Describe the target audience, the end users who will be using the product.
  • Mention primary user personas.
  • The goals and challenges of your user.
  • What’re the scenarios that stop the users from heading towards conversion? (do they find it hard to navigate or understand the benefits of the app looks difficult?)
  • Is it going to be a mobile-only solution, or is this going to be a subset of a big project?
  
  
• Target Audience
  • It’s important to describe the target users of the app, because this can help the vendors in assessing the infrastructure requirements, database design and think of the Usability side too.
  • Provide the Responders with all available information/research regarding the users of the app. The list includes journey maps as well as user identity.


• Functionality Requirements
  • The most vital aspects of any app are its features. For this reason, businesses should be clear about the features they want to avail in their app at the starting along with the future updates.
    
    Be clear while explaining:
  • The features that are needed.
  • Must-perform jobs of the application. 
  • Is there already any solution out that the vendors can check out for developing a better understanding of the features? 
  • If there’s any specific device/OS preference, it requires a mention here.
  • If there’s any sort of functionality, that can be taken as an optional feature of the application, not a core one, talk about the same.
  • A clear description of functionality requirements help suppliers in providing a accurate quote and timeline.


• Use Cases
  • Use cases hold the second most vitality when it comes to telling your vendors what you want with your app. Provide a relevant and brief instance of a use case. It will help the vendors in understanding the way of user interaction with the app. 
  • Explain the use case of the app from the very beginning till the end. Explain each step.


• Platforms
  • Which platforms are going to be used for the development? 
  • Android
  • iOS
  • Apple Watch
  • Connected TV (Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Chromecast etc.) 
  • Web or others


• Backend
• Do you already use systems CMS or web services? If yes, then describe them. Do those systems have accessible APIs and documentations? Will the vendor require to build APIs or web services?
• Do you have a current internal database? If so, what type (Oracle, Salesforce, MongoDB, etc.)?
• Besides, you need to specify your preferred tech stack and database, in case you have any.


• Third-Party integration

Does your app need to integrate with third-party solutions? Like you want to integrate with a real-time tracking solution or you want to integrate with a calendar application like google calendar or calendly. 

• Aims and results: 

Expectations from the developers must be communicated properly.The developers should be well-acquainted with the fact that what exactly a business is expecting from them. The aim, results and the list of expectation must have a mention here.

• Project Phases and Timeline

It’s quite a common trend that we prefer to mention only the timeline of the project. However, indeed mentioning the same is vital but a mention of the RFP deadline is equally important. This will help your vendors in knowing when they are going to hear from you. For this reason, it’s essential to choose realistic dates.

• Analytics & Reporting
  • Will you require analytics for your solution? If so, what kind of data do you need to collect?
  • Think on all data points which you would require and which can help in providing you useful feedback and ultimately will help in decision making for future upgrades.

Conclusion

To perform the task of writing an RPF with the highest possible accuracy and efficiency, it’s more than vital to develop an in-depth understanding of your end-to-end product strategy.  This will effectively help in defining your project before starting with writing a mobile app RPF. You should always have a list of the features that are needed to be prioritized, an optimal solution that details the UX and the interface and a prototype that’s clickable.

You should have a list of prioritized features, if possible a low fidelity wireframe which can explain the user experience and user interface.

Here at NBN minds, we invest enough time to give feedback on each RFP we receive despite the fact that we are going to work on the project or not. So, if finding out the right company for mobile app development India looks like a real challenge, feel free to get in touch with us!