The Real ROI of a PTO-Proof RFP Process

June 30, 2025

Evie Secilmis

It started with a Slack message.

"Hey—do you remember how we answered the compliance section for that deal last quarter? Legal’s out, and this one’s due by Friday."

What followed was a scramble:

Digging through old folders.
Guessing at what language was approved.
Ping-ponging edits across teams that were half-available.

Sound familiar?

It’s the hidden tax of an RFP process that depends on heroics—not systems.

And in the summer, that tax gets steeper.

When Your Process Depends on People, People Burn Out

Sales engineers, legal reviewers, proposal managers—they all deserve real time off. But without a process that supports them being offline, time off turns into a bottleneck.

The cost?

Slower turnaround time
Higher error rates
Inconsistent messaging
Stressed-out teams

And none of that looks good to a buyer.

The Math Behind the Burnout

It’s easy to underestimate how much time RFPs quietly drain from a team until you do the math.

If an average technical RFP takes 80 hours across four contributors—sales, SE, legal, and compliance—that’s 320 hours for one deal. Multiply that by 40 RFPs a year and you’re at 12,800 hours. That’s six full work months spent just responding.

Now factor in the hidden friction: delays from PTO, versioning errors, or manual reviews. Conservatively, that adds 15–20%. The real number starts creeping closer to 15,000 hours—the equivalent of another full-time hire who doesn’t actually exist.

That’s the cost of “good enough.”
Not because teams aren’t working hard, but because the process makes it impossible not to.

The Hidden Cost of “Good Enough” Processes

Most teams assume their current approach works “well enough.” Until you actually measure it.

Every duplicated answer, every unnecessary Slack ping, every late-night edit compounds into lost time and invisible costs. Multiply that across a year’s worth of deals, and the numbers get uncomfortable:

Hundreds of hours spent chasing old answers instead of closing new revenue
Tens of thousands in labor costs tied up in review cycles and manual QA
Lower win rates as response quality and consistency erode

The truth? “Good enough” isn’t good for growth.
Efficiency isn’t just about moving faster—it’s about freeing capacity.
With the right foundation, every RFP stops being busywork and starts being a competitive advantage.

So What Does a PTO-Proof Process Actually Save You?

Start with this: The average technical RFP takes 50–100 hours across departments. Multiply that by every deal in flight—then factor in delays, revisions, and context-switching.

Now imagine:

No duplicated answers
No last-minute scrambles
No dependency on "who remembers what"

The result isn’t just speed. It’s scale.

Where ROI Actually Comes From

Time Saved
- Auto-surfaced responses mean fewer hours writing from scratch
- Fewer review cycles mean faster internal approvals
Risk Avoided
- Reused, approved answers reduce legal and compliance exposure
- Role-based permissions protect sensitive info across teams
Pipeline Protected
- RFPs don’t stall when key people are out
- Teams can keep moving without sacrificing accuracy
People Retained
- Your best SEs and SMEs aren’t buried in repeat work
- PTO actually means unplugged, not "available if needed"

Building a Culture of Continuity

PTO-proofing isn’t just operational—it’s cultural.

When people know their work won’t collapse in their absence, they feel safer taking breaks and performing at their best when they’re on. That kind of confidence doesn’t come from heroics—it comes from structure.

Teams that build for continuity:

Reduce burnout and attrition
Improve cross-functional trust
Deliver consistent, high-quality responses year-round

With Iris, continuity becomes built-in—not an afterthought.
Every answer, workflow, and approval is structured for resilience—so your team can move fast without fear of what happens when someone’s offline.