A request for proposal (RFP) is one of procurement's most useful tools for buying complex goods and services. It is also one of the most misunderstood. Some teams avoid formal sourcing events because they believe they take too long. Others assume the work is too varied to automate. Suppliers sometimes suspect the outcome is decided before the event begins.
Many of these beliefs grow out of manual processes rather than out of the request for proposal itself. This guide, refreshed for 2026, takes on three common myths and explains what automation can and cannot do.
Myth 1: requests for proposal take so long that you can only run a few a year
There is some truth here. Requests for proposal have grown longer, with more technical requirements, more security and compliance questions and more stakeholders. But the belief feeds itself. If a team assumes each event will take months, it limits how many it runs, and more spend goes through informal buying instead.
Most of the elapsed time is not spent thinking. It is spent on coordination: assembling requirements from several departments, formatting documents, answering supplier questions by email, chasing late responses and copying answers into a scoring spreadsheet.
The cure has two parts. First, ask only for what you need: requirements that will change the decision, not every question anyone could think of. Second, remove the manual coordination with templates, a single portal for supplier communication and automatic consolidation of responses. Read our step by step guide on how to run a request for proposal.
Myth 2: requests for proposal are too complex to automate
Complex does not mean unique. Even the most detailed sourcing event repeats the same steps every time, and those are the steps automation handles well. Automation does not replace the human parts of sourcing, such as understanding requirements, negotiating and building relationships. It removes the clerical work around them.
Steps that can be automated include:
- Building the event from approved templates and question libraries
- Loading buyer, supplier and category details from existing records
- Publishing to invited suppliers and tracking who has viewed and responded
- Sending reminders before deadlines to suppliers and internal evaluators
- Consolidating responses and pricing into one comparison
- Drafting scores against the weighted criteria you set before publishing
In Aavenir RFPflow, Aavenir AI reads each supplier response against your criteria and drafts a score and a summary for each section. Evaluators see the reasoning, accept or change every score, and make the award. The draft saves reading time; the judgment stays with people.
Myth 3: request for proposal software is only for requests for proposal
A sourcing tool supports the whole family of structured requests, not just one document type:
- Request for information (RFI): to learn what the market offers before you define requirements
- Request for quotation (RFQ): to compare prices when the specification is already fixed
- Supplier questionnaires: due diligence, security and compliance questions for new or existing suppliers
- Request for proposal: to compare complete solutions when price is only part of the decision
Not sure which one you need? See the difference between a request for information, quotation and proposal.
The content built up in the tool, such as question libraries, scoring models and past supplier responses, becomes useful well beyond a single event. It shortens the next event in the same category, supports supplier consolidation and gives procurement evidence for renewals.
There is a strategic benefit too. Running more spend through structured events, instead of ad hoc purchases, gives procurement more competitive pressure and better data on the supplier base.
What about the belief that requests for proposal are biased?
Suppliers sometimes suspect that an event is written around a preferred vendor, or that only the lowest price wins. Both suspicions are answered by the same practice: publish weighted evaluation criteria before responses arrive, apply them consistently and record the reasons for every score.
A structured tool makes this easier to prove. Every supplier sees the same questions and deadlines, every evaluator scores against the same criteria, and the audit trail shows how the decision was reached.
| Concern | Manual event | Structured, automated event |
|---|---|---|
| Takes too long | Email, documents and spreadsheets | Templates, portal and automatic consolidation |
| Too complex to automate | Every step done by hand | Repeatable steps automated, judgment kept human |
| Only one use | A one off document | Requests for information, quotation and proposal on one system |
| Biased outcome | Scoring hard to explain | Published criteria and recorded reasons |
Common request for proposal concerns and how a structured process answers them.
What automation should not do
It also should not become a reason to ask more questions. Because adding a question to a template costs nothing, automated events can grow longer over time. Review your question libraries after each event, drop questions that did not change any score, and keep the request focused on what will decide the award. Suppliers respond faster and more carefully to a shorter, clearer request, and evaluators have less to read.
Automation should not choose the supplier. It should not negotiate on your behalf or decide which risks are acceptable. Its job is to make the event faster and the comparison clearer, so the people responsible can spend their time on the decision itself. See a sourcing case study for how one team approached it.
The bottom line
Requests for proposal are slow and opaque mostly when they are run by hand. Templates, a shared portal, automatic reminders and AI drafted scores remove much of the delay, while published criteria and recorded reasons answer concerns about fairness. Automate the coordination and keep the award with people.