Technical writing – Preparation of specifications and tender requests
There are many types of technical writers, and one of the most difficult jobs a technical writer can face is preparing requisitions and specifications for a request for quotation. Imagine that you are working for a very large corporation and want to outsource a very important task to one of their vendors, so you have to make a large RFP. He must prepare everything according to all the various departments in his company, and everything must be exact.
In the meantime, you should also consider all the laws and regulations your business must follow to protect you from risk and liability or potential lawsuits. One of the reasons these requests get so large, some spanning over 200 pages, is because of all the rules and regulations that get in the way of every facet of the Corporation.
A seller must comply with all these rules and regulations, just as if it were the real company. In fact, the company realizes that complying with all these rules and regulations will cost them a lot of money. Another reason why they outsource. By subcontracting, they can impose their responsibilities to comply with all those laws on the supplier.
But they need it in writing from the supplier who will meet all the specifications in the request for quotation. When preparing these bid specifications, you should consider the following categories;
- Employee Laws
- Risks and Insurance
- Quality of Products and Service
- Full price breakdown
- environmental compliance
- Required equipment
- Training and Certification of Workers
- dispute resolutions
- amendments
- Terms of the contract
- Payment and Billing Conditions
- Contract Termination Procedures
In fact, the technical writer must also take into account the above specifications for the application and use some of the templates, however, he must be very careful when doing so and must also be reviewed by a lawyer. In some companies, it is the lawyer who writes the requests for technical offers, or at least the legal part. Please consider all this.