Medical Translation Insight

This year, we have been inundated with RFPs from medical device and pharmaceutical companies. It seems like everybody is getting the idea that they should be managing their translation spend better. And RFPs are often seen as the way to accomplish that.

Be that as it may, from our perspective some RFPs are clearly better than others. (By "better", I mean that they are likely to give the client company the information they need to make a good decision.) We see some RFPs where we pity the folks on the client side who have to wade through the responses, trying to make sense of them.

If you are interested in improving your RFPs (translation-related or otherwise), the folks at Marketing Profs posted a list of seven tips and tricks for better RFPs:

1. Prequalify recipients
2. Create an RFP that's worthy of your brand
3. Value brevity
4. Answer questions from all recipients
5. Set a realistic response schedule
6. Provide clear evaluation criteria
7. Follow up with all bidders

While this is a concise and obvious list, plenty of drug and device companies struggle with just these seven items...

For more in-depth information on RFPs, check out the following resources:

• 3 Steps to Successful Translation Management
• Optimizing RFPs: Simple Steps to Better Responses
• Budgeting for Translations
• Writing and Responding to RFPs & RFQs

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