Walking into today’s B2B buying process feels less like a marathon and more like a sprint. According to new LinkedIn data, nearly half of B2B deals now close within just 14 days.
That acceleration is recent. The share of B2B buying decisions closing inside a two-week window has jumped to 45%, up from 38% last quarter.
Today’s buyers are doing their own research, arriving at the table 70% of the way through their journey, and they are not looking for a sales pitch. Instead, they want a partner who can keep up. That reality leaves little room for process-heavy steps designed for a slower era.
There’s just one problem: The request for proposal (RFP). This piece of the sales cycle is not built for this faster pace.
While the rest of the sales stack has moved toward real-time responsiveness, the RFP remains a notorious bottleneck. When nearly half of deals are won or lost within a two-week window, the traditional three-week RFP turnaround is not just slow; it is a deal-killer.
“The differentiator is no longer manual,” says Eugene Ho, chief product officer at response management platform Loopio. “It’s the strength of your integrations.”
Why Traditional RFPs Slow Modern Sales
Table of Contents
Submitting RFPs is a formal process in which a company or government issues a document inviting potential suppliers or vendors to submit proposals to fulfill a specific project or need. This procedure enables the buyer to objectively compare solutions, costs, and capabilities before making a purchase decision, ensuring transparency, competition, and alignment with strategic goals.
Organizations use RFPs for complex purchases, such as software, construction, or services, not just simple products. An effective RFP describes the project, defines requirements, sets timelines, and outlines evaluation criteria. Vendors respond with details covering their approach, pricing, experience, and how their proposal meets the buyer’s needs.
In theory, this structured approach helps buyers make informed decisions. In practice, it often slows momentum just as deals begin to move quickly.
Waiting for responses delays evaluation and decision-making, especially when engaging with subject matter experts (SMEs), according to Ho. The waiting period becomes particularly challenging when dealing with companies that have a disconnected tech stack.
Frustration mounts due to operational friction, data inconsistencies, and increased cognitive load. By contrast, a connected tech stack streamlines workflows and provides a single source of truth, thereby improving efficiency and engagement.
“For the past five years, collaborating with SMEs has been one of the top challenges reported by teams participating in RFPs. In disconnected tech stacks, the majority of time loss occurs during the SME hunt, with manual assignment and follow-ups to collect answers being the biggest culprits,” Ho told CRM Buyer.
He continued, “In contrast, connected tech stacks enable SMEs to respond directly within the tools they’re already using, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, which can significantly reduce the time spent tracking down answers.”
What RFP Teams Need to Win in 14 Days
Loopio is primarily a sales platform for commerce businesses. However, it integrates with major CRM systems such as Salesforce and HubSpot, as well as other sales tools, to help companies automate and streamline responses to complex sales documents.
Companies looking to meet the 14-day window need essential integration solutions between their sales tech stack and the RFP platform. These baseline non-negotiables include revenue operations, CRM, company communications (instant messenging tools), and secure cloud storage, Ho noted.
“For example, Salesforce and HubSpot are standard CRM integrations, Slack and Microsoft Teams are typically used for instant messaging, while Google Drive and SharePoint are among the most common content storage options,” he offered.
Also key to meeting the shortened buying-cycle demands is AI-enabled RFP software that addresses the stale content problem. When AI is constrained to approved sources — with version control, ownership, and review workflows — it can tailor responses quickly without hallucinating outdated specs, as it generates from current, validated data rather than guessing.
“The stale content problem is solved by using an RFP solution that measures the health, or relevance, of answers based on how recently they’ve been used or how likely they are to win,” he advised.
For example, his company offers a feature called Confidence Pulse that provides a confidence score for every RFP answer, whether auto-retrieved or auto-generated by the Loopio platform.
New Role for RFP Managers
Automating the surfacing of the correct answer has shifted the RFP manager’s role from writer and hunter to editor and strategist, according to Ho. Over the past few years, that evolution has positioned the role as a strategic revenue driver.
“Instead of spending hours crafting messaging, they spend more time project managing, capturing planning, and tailoring responses to win business for their company,” he said.
Ultimately, this new responsibility ensures the RFP response secures the company’s sales team a seat in the next round of the buying process, typically an interview, he added.
Avoiding Bot-Generated Responses
Speed often kills personalization. A robust tech stack allows a team to move at AI speed without the response feeling like a generic, computerized template.
“A robust tech stack should pair AI with a curated, up-to-date content library of your best answers, which teams can use to generate quality responses in seconds,” Ho explained.
He recommended two steps to enable faster AI responses while remaining thoughtful and tailored. One is surfacing relevant approved answers instantly. The second is giving RFP managers the oversight to easily adjust tone, messaging, and buyer-specific details.
What Corporate Leadership Must Rethink
Ho noted the need for system integrations to handle manual grunt work as technology becomes better at automating repetitive tasks. Leadership should focus less on staffing for writing volume and instead holistically build the RFP team as a strategic revenue driver.
“High-performance teams require individuals skilled in messaging, deal strategy, and cross-functional collaboration. These roles transform RFP work from a tactical process into a lever for winning deals, rather than merely completing documents,” he concluded.
