Sample

 RFP  Outline  Seeking  a  Mobile  Consumer  Application  Platform  Provider    

 

1. Introduction  

1.1 Purpose  

1.2 Proposal  Evaluation  Process  

1.3 Scheduled  Timetable  &  Coordination  

1.4  RFP  Instructions  

 

2. Company  Background  (to  be  filled  out  by  issuing  company)    

 
Company  Overview:  
 
Business  Objectives:  
Objectives  for  the  mobile  initiative  include:  
 
Scope  of  Project:  
 
RFP  Services  Requested  Overview  
 
Timing  of  Project:  
 
Expected  Usage:  ie,  Global,  Region,  Local  
 

3. Company’s  Technology  Environment    

 
Overview  of  company’s  technology  environment  and  existing  mobile  infrastructure  (if  any).  

4. Business  Functionality  Requirements  

4.1 Overview  
 
The  goal  of  the  mobility  solution  is  to  enable  an  integrated  online  and  mobile  experience  that  provides  mobile  
users  with  access  to  a  substantial  subset  of  capabilities  currently  available  to  online  users.    
 
The  mobility  solution  must  deliver  two  key  capabilities:  
 
• The  ability  to  mobile  enable  existing  websites:  
o View  Products    
o E-­‐commerce    
o User  Registration    
o Sign-­‐in  
• The  ability  to  develop  native  mobile  phone  applications  that  integrate  with:  
o View  Products    
o E-­‐commerce  
o Push  Notification/Support  of  Marketing  Initiatives      
4.2 Mobile  Web  Requirements  
 
Solution  needs  to  support  various  mobile  browsers  and  more  than  8,000  device  types  including  iPod  Touch,  
iPad,  etc.  
 

4.3 Native  Application  Development  Requirements  

 
State  OS/devices/apps  the  company  wants  to  support,  i.e.  (iPhone,  Android,  BlackBerry,  Symbian,  Palm,  
Windows  Mobile,  etc.)  
 
The  native  application  must  have  the  ability  to  integrate  with  existing  web  sites  and  well  as  with  back-­‐end  
systems  or  third-­‐party  systems.    
 

4.4 Technical  requirements  

 
The  vendor  platform  must  also:  
• Enable  the  look  and  feel  of  the  mobile  web  application  to  be  modified  
• Enable  the  look  and  feel  of  the  native  mobile  application  to  be  modified  
• Enable  changes  to  the  user  interface  
• Enable  the  integration  with  third  party  APIs    
• Support  multiple  languages  and  character  sets  
• Enable  the  creation  of  a  framework  to  which  new  mobile  features  can  be  added  while  providing  users  
with  a  consolidated,  seamless  user  experience  
 

5. Mobile  Platform  Technology  Environment  

 
Please  provide  an  overview  of  the  solution  and  the  associated  architecture.    Describe  in  detail  each  
component  in  the  application  architecture,  the  integration  between  components  and  the  technical  
environment  that  supports  this.    

5.1 Mobile  Application  Platform  

5.1.1 Core  Product  Technologies  

1. How  does  the  product  architecture  support  performance  and  scalability?    Please  provide  
benchmarking  information.    
 
 
2. What  mobile  technologies  are  supported  by  the  core  product?  Please  provide  a  complete  list  of  
technologies  supported  to  date  and  technologies  in  the  product  roadmap  (WAP,  SMS,  Rich  Clients-­‐
iPhone,  Android,  J2ME).  
 
 
3. How  large  is  the  device  database  maintained  for  the  core  product,  how  is  it  updated?  What  level  of  
detail  is  included?  How  is  device  detection  performed?  
 
4. What  mobile  browsers  are  supported  by  the  product?    
 
  
5. What  media  types,  MIME  types  are  supported  by  the  core  product?  How  does  the  product  handle  
resizing  images  to  fit  mobile  devices.  
 

6. What are the SLAs around supporting device OS changes (Blackberry 5.0 to 5.1, for example)?

7. What are the SLA’s around new device OS versions (iPhone 3.0 to 4.0 for example)?

8. What are the SLA’s around new device types?

9. How does the platform support moving the existing application/web site to new devices and/or
new OS versions?

10. Assuming that the initial implementation will be mobile web, what additional effort will be
required to build fully native application upon completion of the mobile website? (not “wrapper”
type applications, but full downloadable native applications). Address specifically:

a. iPhone

b. Android

c. BlackBerry

d. Symbian (for global markets)

e. Support for non-mobile channels? Ex: Social Media integration, etc.

f. Mention any other device types that may be of interest, and that the company supports, or
plans to support in the future.

11. As a follow-on to question 8), is your system capable of taking advantage of the entire suite of
native capabilities of the device (both for mobile web, as well as native rich apps)? What about
your graphics capabilities? GPS? Please explain.

12. Is your system capable of supporting multiple applications, mobile web sites, and other channels
from a single application definition? Please explain.

13. How many mobile systems do you support and optimize for, addressing specifically the device
Fatypes, device form factors, browser types, and operating systems that you support? Please
explain. In addition, please explain your real time optimization capabilities.

14. Production level support – are you staffed for 365/24/7 production level support? Explain.
 15. What type of real time communication systems do you support for mobile devices, including:

a. SMS/MMS (one way and two way)

b. Alerts

c. Advertising

16. Is your system a commercial software system, or will your proposed application be built as a
custom system?

17. Although the initial implementation will be English, what other languages do you support?
What will the process and level of effort be to support a new language.

18. What are your capabilities with regards to making secure transactions over mobile web,
especially with regards mobile commerce?

19. Are you able to do both Hosting and on-premise deployments? Please explain your approach to
both.

20. What are the back end data systems that your system depends on? (e.g., web servers, database,
etc). Which of your systems are based on open system standards?

21. Are your production systems part of a single platform?

22. Please explain the redundancy, failover and other mission critical elements of your architecture to
prevent downtime.

23. Do you license your development tools, so that the company can develop or enhance the mobile
systems built using your technology?

24. What are the data integration capabilities of your solution? How do you accomplish data
integration? Specifically, what experience do you have in:

a. Scraping all data sources in a commercial web site?

b. Integrating with web services?

c. Integrating with proprietary data repositories behind a firewall?

d. Mix and match multiple data sources using any one or all of a, b, and c above?

 
 

5.1.2 Security  
 
 
1. How  does  the  core  product  enable  secure  transactions  on  mobile  devices?    
 
  
2. What  approaches,  from  a  security  standpoint,  does  the  core  product  support  for  integrating  with  
existing  e-­‐Commerce  platforms?  (credit  card  security,  SSL,  etc)    

 
3. How  does  the  core  produce  deal  with  session  management?  (e.g.  does  the  middleware  piece  emulate  
a  client  browser  and  keeps  session  state)  
 

 
 
 

5.1.3 APIs  

1. What  types  of  APIs/Web  Services  are  supported  by  your  product  when  connecting  to  existing  
applications?  (REST,  SOAP,  etc).    
 
 
2. How  does  the  product  enable  integration  with  native  phone  capabilities?  (e.g.  GPS,  camera,  
accelerometer,  voice  services).  Can  users  make  calls  from  web  based  applications  or  native  
applications?  (e.g.  click  on  phone  number  to  make  call)  
 
 
 

5.1.4 Integration  Capabilities  

 
1. How  is  the  look  and  feel  customized  (does  this  require  development)?    
 
2. In  case  the  core  product  support  native  applications  on  rich  clients  such  as  iPhone  and  Android,  how  
does  the  product  allows  for  integration  with  existing  web  sites  and/or  services?  (screen  scraping,  
using  existing  web  service  APIs,  etc)    
 
 
 
 

5.1.5 Analytics/Reporting  

1. Do you support out of the box reporting/analytics? If so, what types of information is used for
the reports? Do the reports show the mobile device used? Are you able to track Mobile web vs.
Native on–device apps usage?  

5.1.6 Scalability  
 
 
 1. How  can  the  hosting  infrastructure  be  scaled?    
 
 
2. How  does  scaling  impact  licensing?    
 
 
3. Does  the  core  product  support  load  balancing?  If  so,  what  kind  of  load  balancing?  (software,  
hardware)    
 

5.1.7 High  Availability  

1. How  does  the  core  product  achieve  a  highly  available  environment  (>  99.9%)    
 
 
2. Does  the  core  product  support  clustering?  If  so  what  clustering  technologies?    
 

5.1.8 Internationalization  

1. How  does  the  core  product  support  internationalization?    

 
 

5.1.9 Monitoring,  Notification  and  Troubleshooting  

1. What  components  can  be  monitored  within  the  product?    
 
 
2. What  events  can  generate  a  notification  within  the  product?    
 

5.1.10 Accessibility  
 
 
1. What  accessibility  guidelines  and  standards  does  the  core  product  complies  with?  

6. Implementation  Services  
Please  describe  the  implementations  services  provided  to  implement  the  functionality  described  in  previous  
sections.    The  implementation  services  include    
§ Deployment  and  configuration  of  the  mobile  web  platform  
§ Customization  of  the  mobile  website  forms  
§ Custom  software  development  to  develop  items  such  as  native  mobile  phone  applications  for  various  
mobile  operating  platforms,  integration  interfaces,  reports,  and  security  
 
Based  on  the  technical  requirements  defined  in  the  sections  above  please  provide  in  detail  the  methodology,  
the  effort,  and  the  resources  required  to  deploy  the  solution.    For  all  of  the  development  work,  please  
describe  the  type  of  development  work  expected  and  the  associated  quantity.      
 
6.1 Implementation  
 
1. What  is  the  implementation  methodology  used?  Please  describe  the  specific  phases,  steps,  and  
artifacts.  
 
 
2. Provide  a  high  level  project  plan  for  implementing  the  solution  showing  all  phases  of  the  SDLC  (e.g.  
planning,  design,  development/build,  test,  deploy).    Include  the  effort  showing  high-­‐level  milestones,  
work  packages,  and  dependencies.    Please  use  Microsoft  Project  to  detail  the  plan  to  the  week  level.    
Provide  staffing  levels  on  a  per  week  basis.  
 
3. What  would  be  the  project  organization?    Describe  the  different  types  of  roles  and  the  number  of  
resources  needed  for  each  role?    Please  provide  a  staffing  model  for  the  duration  of  the  project  and  
an  organization  chart.  
 
 
4. List  any  other  parties  that  will  participate  in  the  deployment  and  describe  in  detail  their  roles.  
 
 
5. What  type  of  post  implementation  support  does  the  Vendor  provide  as  a  warranty  for  the  solution?    
How  long  is  this  provided  and  what  is  the  team  that  would  provide  the  support?  
 

 
6. What  testing/QA  capabilities  does  the  vendor  provide?  (e.g.  unit  testing,  functional  testing,  
performance/load/stress  testing).  What  environments  are  provided  by  the  vendor  and  what  
environments  are  needed  from  the  company?  (DEV,  QA,  etc).    
 
 
7. What  tools  does  the  vendor  use  to  test  mobile  applications  on  the  different  devices  supported  in  their  
device  database?  (e.g.  device  emulators)  
 
 
 

7. Hosting  Services  
Please  describe  how  the  solution  is  hosted  (if  required),  including  management,  administration,  and  
maintenance  of  the  technology  environment  that  supports  all  aspects  of  the  solution.      
 

7.1 Hosting  Capabilities  

 
1. Describe  the  services  provided  (complete  set  of  services,  specific  services  to  support  our  solution,  
experience  with  providing  services)  
 
 
2. Describe  the  operating  Model  (organization,  processes,  and  tools)  
 
 
3. Confirm  the  service  levels  can  be  achieved  (availability,  performance)  
 
 
 4. How  does  the  technical  environment  support  the  service  levels?    Describe  the  environment  in  detail.    
Please  include  metrics  for  the  previous  year  showing  availability  (planned  and  unplanned)  and  
performance.  
 
 
5. Describe  in  detail  the  security  aspects  of  the  hosted  environment  and  the  independent  audit/security  
certifications  of  the  environment.  
 
 
6. Are  the  hardware  components  dedicated  or  shared?    If  it  is  shared  how  do  ensure  the  security,  
service  levels,  and  scalability  requirements?  
 
 

8. INFORMATION  SECURITY  REQUIREMENTS  

Please  respond  with  your  capabilities  to  comply  with  the  following  requirements:  
 
Requirement   Response  
Control  access  to  Confidential  Information      
Vendor  shall:  
v   Maintain  appropriate  barriers  between  untrusted  networks  
such  as  the  Internet  and  systems  containing  Confidential  
Information,  including:  
  Establishing   a   Demilitarized   Zone   (DMZ)   between   the  
untrusted   Internet   and   the   Business   Partner   internal   network  
where   a   where   the     data   resides.     This   three-­‐tire   architecture  
will   provide   another   layer   of   protection   to     confidential  
information   by   placing   that   information   behind   a   second  
firewall  
  Installing,   configuring   and   monitoring   system  
configuration,   firewall   (intrusion   prevention)   and   intrusion  
detection   software   protecting   systems   where   Confidential  
Information  is  stored  or  processed.    
  Maintaining   a   written   network   diagram   showing   all  
equipment,  tools  and  media  where  Confidential  Information  is  
processed  or  stored.    
  Adhere   to   a   comprehensive   policy   and   procedure   to  
audit   logs   of   all   monitoring   tools   and   to   resolve   any  
unauthorized  access  attempts.    
Ensure   physical   security   of   facilities   where   Confidential    
Information  is  stored  
Vendor  shall:  
  Create   the   appropriate   number   of   layers   of   physical  
security   between   unauthorized   people   and   systems   which  
store   or   process   Confidential   Information   (e.g.   for   most  
purposes,  the  appropriate  number  of  layers  will  be  three).    
  Maintain  at  least  one  monitoring  layer.    
 Protect  and  ensure  secure  treatment  of  each  Party’s  systems    
  The   information   security   standards   for   the   internal  
operations  of  the  party,  whose  systems  will  be  accessed  by  
the   other   party   to   perform   its   obligations   under   the  
Agreement  will  apply.    
 

9. SERVICE  LEVEL  REQUIREMENTS  

 
Please  respond  as  to  your  capabilities  to  comply  with  the  following  requirements:  
 
 Requirement   Response  
Service  Desk  Call  Procedures:    
In  the  event  of  a  service  interruption  or  problem  reporting.      
Escalation  Procedures:    
In  the  event  of  an  outage,  both  at  a  Management  and  Technical  levels    
System  Support  Hours  of  Operation:    
Please  provide  all  locations  involved  in  the  support  of  the  application  
Standard  Maintenance  Window:        
(example:30th  of  each  month  3  hour  duration)  
Unscheduled  Maintenance  Window:    
Please  provide  communication  vehicle  and  how  much  lead  time  to  the  
client.  
Disaster  Recovery:    
Please  provide  your  DR  site  location,  annual  DR  testing  schedule,  
recovery  time  of  the  system/application.  
Change  Control  Procedures.      The  company  requires  a  7  day  notice    
on  any  changes  to  the  environment.    This  includes,  program  code,  
parameter  settings,  circuit,  hardware,  software,  but  excludes  any/all  
content  changes.      
 requires  the  vendor  to  coordinate  all  activities  with  the    
Business  Solution  Manager.  
Vendor  Holiday  Schedule    
Service  Reporting  and  Review  procedures:    
Please  provide  goals  and  measurements  of  the  system/application  
and  when  you  will  report  to  the  client.