In procurement terms RFI usually stands for Request for Information, an initial stage before a full RFP is published (Request for Proposal).

But, what if instead it stood for “Request for Innovation”?

What if governments published specifications for new innovations in the same way they expressed intents to buy?

Procurement Commercialization

Well actually they do, and this forms the basis of our ‘Procurement Commercialization’ practice.

The light bulb moment for me occurred while reading an RFP and I saw that not only did they state a specific requirement for an immediate purchase but they also asked for inputs on longer term future direction too, inputs that could directly be used for designing new products and services, that didn’t yet exist.

In short, they were embedding Request for Innovation into an RFP.

Then as I researched this field further I found that using procurement this way, to drive new innovations, was a new science already underway most notably ‘Forward Commitment Procurement‘.

So with our goal of building a world-leading Cloud Computing industry I realized that the prime materials needed to achieve this already existed – In the RFPs being published by the Canadian Government for their various IT needs.

Read more here in Procurement Commercialization.