What do the letters actually ask for?
They ask for a different decision. Firms lose hours by treating every acronym as a full bid. An EOI is not an RFT with a friendlier name. An RFQ under a panel is not a free hit because you already hold the seat. Read the instrument, then score the three axes against what it actually wants.
If the cover says one thing and the conditions say another, believe the conditions. Buyers reuse templates. The evaluation clause is the one that decides how you will be scored.
What is the difference between an RFT and an RFP?
An RFT wants a conforming offer. The specification is the work. Evaluators score how well you meet it, after they have confirmed you met every mandatory. Deviation is often non-conforming. That is the point of the instrument.
An RFP wants a proposed solution. Scope may be looser. Negotiation may be expected. That does not make mandatories optional, and it does not make liability a later problem. Firms treat RFPs as a chance to shine and skip the gate. The three axes do not care that the cover said proposal.
In Australian public buying the two labels are used loosely. Some agencies issue an “RFP” that is an RFT in the conditions. Read the lodgement rules and the evaluation clause. The glossary entries for RFT and RFP are the short versions; the pack is the long one.
When is an RFQ still a real bid?
When the conditions of contract sit underneath it, when the window is short, when the rate you quote becomes the rate you live with. Panel RFQs feel small because the seat is already paid for. That is how they eat a week of people who should have been on live work.
Strategy is often thinner on an RFQ: you already decided the panel was a channel. Capacity and risk are not. A short-notice RFQ that fails the roster, or that inherits an uncapped indemnity from the head agreement, is a no-bid with a shorter letter. Bid/no-bid for panels is the longer arithmetic.
Is an EOI worth doing?
Sometimes. If the shortlist is the only path to work you have named as core, and the hours are honest, yes. If the EOI exists so the buyer can show they asked the market, and you have no path to the later RFT that fits, no. Visibility is the reason firms say yes to EOIs they cannot win. Visibility is not a criterion.
Price the hours as a pursuit. An EOI that takes two principals off the clock for three days is not a cheap option. It is a bid with no fee at the end of it, unless the later stage is one you would actually take.
What about an ITT or an RFI?
ITT: treat as RFT. Mandatories, lodgement, published weights. Do not invent a distinction because the letters changed.
RFI: usually not a bid. Answer it if shaping the later pack is worth the hours, and if you can do it without handing over intellectual property you will want to sell. Decline it, cleanly, if the only argument is that you should be seen. The same decline discipline as any other no applies; the letter can be shorter.
Private buyers use the same letters with less discipline. An invited “RFP” from a corporate can be a specification, a fishing trip, or a document written around an incumbent. The letters still help. The pack still decides. Public processes add probity on top. They do not add a duty to respond.