Cutting the Clutter: ISMPP’s ORION Task Force Aims to Streamline RFIs

Steve Palmisano, The Lockwood Group; Kim Gertsen, Daiichi Sankyo; Robert Matheis, International Society for Medical Publication Professionals; Todd Parker, GSK¹.

Email your questions and comments on this article to TheMAP@ismpp.org.

RFI/RFP Challenges Call for Process Improvements

The Request for Information (RFI) and Request for Proposal (RFP) processes (see Supplementary Table 3 for definitions and lexicon considerations) are critical components of medical publication management, enabling stakeholders to evaluate services and establish strategic partnerships. However, these processes are often plagued by inefficiencies that hinder decision making (misaligned agencies included in the process, lack of clarity around criteria, less than meaningful responses to RFI questions, etc.), strain resources (industry stakeholders attending agency capability presentations that do not address the RFI/RFP requirements, significant agency preparation with limited industry feedback, etc.), and frustrate both industry leads and agencies.

Discussions with ISMPP executive leadership groups regarding the RFI process and a need for common project assumptions identified recurring challenges, including inconsistent information that limited comparisons for industry decision makers. This can lead to significant time investment required by agencies due to unclear or duplicative RFI/RFP questions. These challenges prompted ISMPP to launch the ORION Task Force, comprising representatives from industry, procurement, and agencies, with the goal of addressing this long-standing issue.

The ORION Task Force was established to assess current practices, identify pain points, explore the benefits and drawbacks of standardization, and develop resources to enhance efficiency, quality, and transparency across stakeholders. Recognizing that misaligned priorities often exacerbate inefficiencies, the ORION Task Force approach centers on fostering alignment and understanding through collaboration.

Through its initial insights, the Task Force identified two primary workstreams to make meaningful improvements:

1. The RFI Question Bank: A tool to streamline and optimize RFI questions and agency insights that reduces the burden for all parties
2. The Publication Assumptions Framework: A resource to support consistent assumptions for pricing common publication project types (eg, abstracts, posters, oral presentations, manuscripts)

The RFI Question Bank Aims to Drive Efficiency and Provide Actionable Insights

One of ORION’s key initiatives is the development of the RFI Question Bank, a comprehensive yet adaptable resource designed to streamline the RFI process for medical publication partnerships. The tool aims to:

• Identify key questions that support decision making, ensuring agencies spend less time addressing repetitive or unclear requests or questions that provide limited value to industry leads
• Provide actionable insights on agency selection to industry leads, enabling them to make more informed decisions on ideal agency partner(s)

Importantly, the RFI Question Bank is not intended to be a rigid checklist. Instead, it offers a curated list of questions that industry stakeholders can customize to meet their specific needs, avoiding overly nuanced or redundant queries. Agencies, in turn, benefit from reduced effort in crafting responses, allowing them to focus on delivering meaningful insights and solutions.

To develop this resource, ISMPP conducted a roundtable session whereby members categorized RFI topics into two groups: those amenable to standardization and those requiring customization. These findings are summarized in Table 1, which highlights topics like company overview and quality control as suitable for standard responses. In contrast, topics such as innovative offerings and project costs benefit from tailored approaches.

Table 1: RFI Topics Amenable to Standardized Responses

The Task Force compiled questions from various sources and reviewed them for clarity and relevance, ensuring they provide value to industry decision makers. The draft RFI Question Bank, for potential use by industry when seeking a publications agency, was then segmented into topics such as Company Overview, Core Services, and Team Structure. Newcomers to the field, whether in industry or on the agency side, may find this set of RFI questions, representative of industry seeking to obtain input from various agencies, particularly helpful for understanding common asks and formatting consistent responses.

Some RFI questions may not be relevant to choosing an agency. Other RFI questions may seek similar insights but will do so in very different ways, each requiring thoughtful agency responses that may require input from multiple team members, internal coordination, and hours of effort. This can divert agency time and resources away from client work that benefits patients. This can also delay meaningful engagement between potential industry/agency partners. Can a core set of questions that guide agency selection be identified or a more consistent set of questions asked across industry? Or are some RFI questions more ideal for an RFP?

The figure below represents a subset of the questions available within the RFI Question Bank. This tool also provides additional information, including the perceived value of each question from the perspectives of different stakeholders involved in publication-related RFIs (ie, Publication Leads, industry Procurement, and Agency points of contact). Although there was general alignment for some questions in the RFI Question Bank, differences in perceived value of other questions (as well as the additional notes within the RFI Question Bank) provide insights into the needs of each stakeholder. In the end, industry seeks meaningful answers to the questions posed and procurement seeks answers to some questions that are requirements.

Figure 1: RFI Question Bank Stakeholder Input

Two perspectives emerge:

• The industry perspective: There is growing understanding of agency effort—however, industry is operating sometimes within rigid procurement frameworks and compliance expectations. Industry focus is typically on:
  • Meaningful answers with consistency and fairness across vendors
  • Data gathering to justify vendor selection decisions
  • Risk mitigation and documentation for audit purposes
• The agency perspective: Time is precious and non-essential RFI questions may shift focus away from driving value; are there alternative approaches?

These two perspectives may create a value asymmetry: agencies invest heavily in something that may not even be read or used in decision-making, while clients gain little additional insight from their efforts in constructing the RFI.

The Publication Assumptions Framework Aims to Support Fair and Transparent Pricing

Another critical ORION workstream is the Publication Assumptions Framework, which addresses pricing challenges stemming from unclear or ambiguous assumptions. Variability in agency interpretations of scope often complicates cost estimation and comparison, leading to inefficiencies in the RFP process.

The Publication Assumptions Framework is designed to define key inputs that influence pricing for common publication types, such as abstracts, posters, oral presentations, and manuscripts. By enhancing clarity and consistency, the resource improves alignment across stakeholders, reduces follow-up questions, and promotes fair and transparent pricing. The timing of when pricing is requested as well as the level of pricing granularity needed for decision making are topics for future discussion.

The ORION Task Force identified assumptions with the greatest impact on project hours, providing corresponding insights into their rationale. For example, the number of authors directly influences the time required for approvals and paperwork, while the use of existing slide or poster templates can significantly reduce design time. These insights are summarized in Table 2 for posters, which serves as an example of how assumptions can be standardized.

Table 2: Publications Assumption Framework—Posters

The Framework also accounts for different types of poster projects, such as encore posters or those requiring only administrative support, to ensure flexibility and nuanced assumptions. A downloadable version of the Framework will be provided as a resource to ISMPP members.

Next Steps for ORION

The RFI Question Bank and Publication Assumptions Framework are just the beginning of ORION’s efforts to transform the RFI/RFP process. These initiatives aim to enhance efficiency, transparency, and alignment across stakeholders, turning what has traditionally been a pain point into a strategic advantage.

For agencies, these tools provide clarity and reduce the effort required to generate responses, enabling them to focus on delivering their best work. For industry leads and procurement teams, they streamline decision making by allowing for easier comparisons across agencies and hope to bring more meaningful answers. Ultimately, these resources foster value-driven partnerships that benefit the entire medical publications ecosystem.

Looking ahead, ISMPP and the ORION Task Force are committed to expanding these efforts. Additional initiatives are being explored, including potential refinements to the tools and templates based on user feedback. A deeper dive into these resources will be presented at an upcoming ISMPP U webinar, and further discussions are planned for future ISMPP meetings to ensure ongoing collaboration and improvement.

Through its innovative approach, ORION is paving the way for a more efficient and equitable RFI/RFP process, proving that even longstanding challenges can be overcome through collaboration, clarity, and commitment to excellence.

Acknowledgments: The authors thank the members of the ORION Task Force for their insights and contributions to these initiatives, attendees of the ISMPP 2025 annual meeting roundtable session, and peer reviewers of this article, including Doreen Valentine (Director, Strategic Programs and Initiatives, ISMPP) and Eric Wong (Chair of The MAP Newsletter Committee).

Supplementary Table 3: Definitions and Lexicon

1. Todd Parker was an employee of Fingerpaint Medical during the content development phase for this article. ↩︎