Taking aim at the eRFP process, Groupize has introduced
EmailBids. The small-meetings technology provider called EmailBids a "conversational
commerce" tool that allows occasional meeting organizers to communicate
with supplier hotels and share standardized bid information via email exchange
rather than logging into a third-party RFP system.
Styled after collaboration tools like Basecamp and Slack,
EmailBids sends email notifications to the meeting organizer's inbox as bids for
a single piece of business accumulate. The notification shows new activity, aggregated
data and dashboards that guide decision-making. The tool allows buyers and
suppliers to attach pertinent proposals, menus and contractual documents, in
addition to the standardized data fields.
According to Groupize, buyers and suppliers
converted 62 percent of the business they ran through EmailBids in early trials,
and meeting organizers received five-times more responses to EmailBid RFPs than
they did to RFPs distributed through traditional systems. Groupize attributed
the response rate to simplified forms and the opportunity to interact more
directly with potential business partners.