Cloud RFP: How to Compare Three Vendors Without the Deck

  • QData

TL;DR

  • Issue one RFP template with fixed sections — vendors that ignore structure reveal how they will operate day two.
  • Score five dimensions equally: scope clarity, SLA honesty, restore evidence, admin/tenant model, total cost at +30% growth.
  • Weight first 90 days heavier than migration price — cheap entry with chaotic onboarding costs more than a higher monthly fee.
  • Run a joint clarification call; document answers in writing before final scoring.

We sat in a review session where three cloud proposals lay open: one led with Kubernetes, one with “digital transformation”, one with the lowest monthly fee. The board asked which to choose. Nobody could answer — because each vendor used different units, different SLA definitions, and different assumptions about who patches the ERP database.

RFPs fail when they become beauty contests. They succeed when they force comparable answers. This guide gives mid-market firms a practical matrix — not a forty-page procurement template — to compare managed cloud and infrastructure offers fairly.

Fix the structure before you fix the price

Send every vendor the same outline and page limit:

  1. Scope table (in / out / optional)
  2. SLA and escalation (severity definitions, on-call coverage)
  3. Backup/restore evidence (see our backup checklist article)
  4. Admin and tenant model (who owns Azure/AWS tenant, break-glass)
  5. Onboarding plan — first 90 days week by week
  6. Pricing: monthly, project assumptions, egress/storage model, example at +30% capacity
  7. Exit: data export, DNS, credential handover, notice period

Vendors who submit only marketing PDFs fail the first filter. Serious operators fill the table even if some cells say “not included”.

The scoring matrix (example weights)

Use a simple 1–5 score per dimension; committee members score independently, then compare.

Dimension What “5” looks like
Scope clarity Named systems, patch boundaries, DB admin yes/no explicit
SLA honesty Severity-1 response time, 24/7 or documented gap + your escalation role
Restore proof Restore report < 90 days, RPO/RTO tied to your tiers
Admin model Your tenant, their least-privilege ops, break-glass documented
Total cost (+30%) Worked example includes projects, egress, your internal hours
First 90 days Inventory, landing zone, one pilot migration, access review dated
References Similar size/industry, speakable contact, not only logo wall

Do not let sales weight “strategic partnership” unless it comes with named engineers and runbooks.

Questions that separate operators from resellers

Who is on call for our account at 03:00? Named pool vs anonymous “NOC”. What is excluded from unlimited support? Read the footnotes. How do you handle our internal change freeze in December? Shows operational maturity. What happens if we exceed egress budget? Surprises kill CFO trust.

Common traps in mid-market RFPs

Comparing monthly fee only while one vendor includes migration days and another bills every day. Letting the cheapest bid win without restore drill requirement. Accepting “ISO certified datacentre” as substitute for your application backup. Choosing multi-cloud slideware when you need one landing zone and one on-call number.

After scoring: one pilot, not big-bang

Before full contract signature, agree a paid or fixed-price pilot: migrate one non-critical workload, run one restore test, execute one incident simulation. Score again after 90 days. Contracts signed on faith alone revert to slide comparisons the first time ERP slows down.

What to do next

Download your last three vendor emails into one folder — if they do not share a common outline, restart the RFP with this structure. Our Cloud Services team helps mid-market firms write neutral scope documents and score responses from an operations perspective — architecture and runbooks, not licence shelfware.

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More from this topic

Backup and Restore: What to Demand Before You Sign
ERP Migration: When Cloud — and When to Stay On-Prem