What is an RFQ engine?
An RFQ engine takes an incoming request for quote, extracts its requirements automatically, matches it against your supplier base, pulls relevant pricing history, and returns a ranked vendor recommendation — replacing the manual research a buyer would otherwise do by hand. The buyer still makes the award decision; the engine removes the hours of prep work in front of it.
How much time does RFQ automation actually save?
On the production build documented in our case study, RFQ research went from 30-plus minutes per request to under 60 seconds, and the team's effective capacity tripled without adding headcount. Your numbers depend on how much of your current time goes to research versus negotiation — the research part is what gets automated.
Does it replace the buyer?
No, and it shouldn't. The engine does the mechanical work — parsing, matching, pricing, ranking — and a human makes the award. What changes is that your buyer reviews a ranked comparison instead of spending half an hour assembling one. Judgment stays with the person; the busywork doesn't.
Can it handle non-standard specs and custom units?
Yes, but not perfectly on day one. Early versions handle the common cases well; accuracy on edge cases like non-standard spec formats and custom unit conventions improves once the parsing is retrained on your real RFQ patterns. We set that expectation up front rather than promising a finished system in week one.
Can it work across multiple entities or business units?
Yes. Vendor catalogs, pricing agreements, and approval rules stay scoped per entity while sharing one parsing and ranking pipeline — so a group with several regions or business units gets consistent processing without merging data that should stay separate.
How does it integrate with our existing ERP or procurement system?
The engine sits in front of your system of record rather than replacing it. It intercepts the RFQ, does the research, and writes the structured result back — so buyers keep working where they already work. Integration shape depends on what you run; that's part of the scoping conversation.
What does an RFQ automation build cost?
Automation projects start at $10K and scale with integration complexity, data readiness, and how many entities or catalogs are in scope. A paid scoping session gets you a concrete range for your situation before you commit to anything.
Who owns the code and data?
You do, entirely, from day one — code, data, and infrastructure, with no licensing-back or retained rights on our side.
