SFMOMA
Challenge
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) recently completed a three-year expansion project to triple the museum’s gallery spaces and consolidate office staff from multiple locations. During construction, the museum issued an RFP to find a qualified integrator to design and implement the network switching infrastructure for more than 300,000 sq. ft. of gallery and office space.
Proposal Services
After the company Sales Rep. received the RFP, he contacted Ron Schmidt to take responsibility for the proposal response. Ron reviewed the technical requirements and reached out to all stakeholders to set expectations for the level of effort required and block their calendars. The proposal team included network engineers, technical project managers, Sales Leadership, a vendor Systems Engineer, and the Sales Rep. Ron gathered information, wrote and formatted the proposal.
The final 83-page formatted document included an executive summary, hardware feature descriptions, network services description, project implementation plan, network diagrams, engineer bios, references and pricing. Since RFP didn’t specify the format or length of the response, a Compliance Matrix covering all technical requirements was added.
Result
The company won the bid based on its technical design and pricing in the proposal, beating a field of regional and national technology integrators. This was a significant win for the company. Not only did they benefit from $1M in hardware sales, they also sold more than 400 hours of high-margin services revenue for project managers and network engineers.
SFMOMA is now a showcase for leveraging the latest technology to enhance the gallery experience. For example, indoor positioning technology combined with a custom mobile app provides guests with a whole new way to see (and hear) art. The network also powers critical building management systems like security and lighting.
Hill Physicians Medical Group
Challenge
Hill Physicians Medical Group is the largest independent physician association in Northern California with more than 4,000 physicians in network. In order to maintain security, performance and reliability, Hill historically invested in their own data center equipment and in-house IT staff. In 2019, Hill initiated a project to upgrade and replace sections of the IT infrastructure at multiple locations to improve performance, capacity and support disaster recovery. An RFP was issued to a limited pool of technology integrators. The company had already completed many significant storage, networking, compute and virtualization projects for Hill, and they were invited to bid.
Proposal Services
The Sales Rep. at the company reached out to Ron spearhead the proposal effort. He started by reviewing of the requirements and collecting information from network engineers, technical project managers, and the sales rep assigned to Hill. In order to win, it was clear that the proposal had to demonstrate in-depth knowledge of their current IT infrastructure, a technically superior solution, a robust implementation plan, and why company was the best choice.
Ron created narratives for the company’s partnership with Hill, how the IT solution strategy mapped to the business requirements, and the company’s future roadmap. He wrote reference case studies and formatted the remaining materials into a single PDF. The final 73-page document included sections outlining the hardware solution, project implementation plan, network diagrams, engineer bios, references, and pricing.
Result
The company won the bid, resulting in the sale of more than $5M in vendor solutions and professional services. The proposal included a section on recommended solutions with business benefits, which led to discussions about future projects and implementations.
