Running a Web Agency RFP in the UAE

A website RFP works when the buyer does most of the thinking before any agency sees the document. Agree the business goal, the scope boundaries, the decision makers and the scoring rules first, then write a request that every bidder can answer on equal terms. This guide walks through the process in order, with a document list and a realistic sequence of stages, so the evaluation starts from comparable responses rather than polished guesswork.

It stops where scoring begins. For the evaluation itself, see our companion piece on scoring website proposals with a weighted framework.

Why a website RFP goes wrong before anyone bids

Most weak RFP outcomes trace back to the preparation stage, not to the agencies. Three patterns come up again and again.

• The scope is a wish list. Every department adds requirements, nobody ranks them, and bidders price the whole list differently. The responses then cannot be compared.
• The decision makers change halfway. A new stakeholder joins at shortlist stage with different priorities, and the process restarts in all but name.
• The questions invite brochures. Asking "describe your approach" produces marketing copy. Asking "how would you migrate our 4,000 product pages without losing search visibility" produces something you can judge.

Fixing these is cheaper than any amount of clever scoring later. The steps below are designed around them.

The RFP process for UAE organisations, step by step

The RFP process in the UAE follows the same logic as anywhere else, with a few local considerations: bilingual content, data protection rules that differ between onshore entities and those in the DIFC or ADGM, and, for government entities, procurement platforms and policies that set their own rules. If you sit in or sell to the public sector, our guide to government and semi government web projects covers the extra layer.

Step 1: Agree the outcome and the owner

Write one paragraph on why the website is being rebuilt and how success will be measured after launch. Leads from a specific audience, fewer support calls, faster publishing, a consolidated platform. Then name a single business owner who can make final calls on scope. An RFP without an owner tends to grow until it cannot be delivered.

Step 2: Form the evaluation panel early

Choose the panel before the document is written, not after responses arrive. A typical panel includes the business owner, someone from IT or security, a marketing or content lead, and procurement. Agree who scores what, who has a veto on security or compliance, and how conflicts of interest are declared. Panel members who helped write the requirements score far more consistently.

Step 3: Audit what you have

Bidders cannot estimate what they cannot see. Before writing, gather the facts: page and template counts, content types, languages, integrations, current hosting, analytics access, traffic patterns and known technical debt. If the current site has performance or search problems, document them. A short website audit before the RFP often turns vague requirements into specific ones.

Step 4: Write and prioritise requirements

Separate requirements into three groups and say so in the document:

1. Mandatory: a response that cannot meet these is excluded. Keep this list short, for example Arabic and English with right to left support, hosting that meets your data residency position, accessibility to a named standard such as WCAG 2.2.
2. Important: these carry most of the scoring weight.
3. Desirable: nice to have, priced as options so they do not distort the comparison.

Write requirements as outcomes where you can. "Editors can publish a news item in both languages without developer help" is better than "the CMS must have a WYSIWYG editor".

Step 5: Fix the commercial format

Give bidders a pricing template with the same line items: discovery, design, build, content migration, integrations, testing, launch, hosting, support and licences. Ask for one off and recurring costs separately and over a fixed number of years. Without a common format, one bidder will include licences and another will leave them out, and the cheapest looking response will rarely be the cheapest.

Step 6: Shortlist before the full RFP

Sending a full RFP to fifteen agencies wastes their time and yours. A short request for information, or a market scan of portfolios and references, can reduce the field to a manageable shortlist. Good agencies are more likely to invest real effort when they know they are one of a handful.

Step 7: Issue, clarify and keep it fair

Publish the RFP to all shortlisted bidders on the same day with the same documents. Set a clarification window, collect questions in writing, and share every answer with every bidder without revealing who asked. Agree in advance whether bidders may contact panel members directly; most processes forbid it.

Step 8: Receive, check compliance, then score

Before anyone scores, run a compliance check: are all mandatory sections answered, is the pricing template complete, are required documents attached? Responses that fail go back for correction or are excluded, according to rules you published in advance. Only then does weighted scoring begin.

A sample RFP timeline

How long the process takes depends on the organisation's approval culture far more than on the website. The table below is a hypothetical example for a mid sized private company with a single approval committee. Treat it as a planning shape, not a benchmark.

The response window is the stage most often squeezed. Two weeks is rarely enough for an agency to understand a complex brief, ask good questions and produce a considered architecture. A rushed window rewards bidders who reuse templates over those who think about your problem.

The documents to include in a web development RFP template

A complete pack makes responses comparable and cuts down clarification traffic. Use this as a checklist when building your own web development RFP template.

Publish the evaluation criteria

Some buyers keep the weights secret in the belief that it prevents gaming. In practice it produces generic proposals. Publishing the criteria and the broad weighting tells bidders where to spend their effort, and it makes the eventual decision easier to defend to an internal audit or a disappointed bidder.

Ask for a response structure, not just answers

Require bidders to follow your headings in your order. Panel members can then compare section 4 against section 4 across every response, instead of hunting through differently organised documents.

Questions that reveal more than a brochure

The quality of responses depends on the quality of the questions. Good RFP questions are specific to your situation and hard to answer with stock text.

Delivery and team

• Who exactly will work on this project, in which roles, and where are they based?
• Will any part of the work be subcontracted or delivered through a partner? If so, who is accountable for each part?
• How do you handle a change request that arrives after design sign off?

Technical approach

• Which platform do you recommend for our requirements, and what would make you recommend a different one?
• How will you migrate existing content and preserve search visibility through the move?
• How do you test right to left layouts and Arabic typography?
• What is your approach to performance and Core Web Vitals on templates with heavy media?

Security and data

• Where will the site and any form data be hosted, and who can access it?
• How do you handle personal data collected through forms, given our obligations under UAE data protection law?
• How are credentials, staging environments and production access managed during and after the project?

The UAE has a federal personal data protection law, Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021, and the DIFC and ADGM run their own regimes. The UAE government portal summarises the main laws. Which rules apply to you depends on where your entity sits and what data you collect, so confirm the position with your legal counsel or the relevant regulator before you set the requirement.

Support after launch

• What does your support model cover, and how are issues prioritised?
• How are security updates and platform upgrades handled, and who pays for them?
• What will we own at the end of the contract: code, designs, accounts, documentation?

Vendor selection: running presentations and references

Written scores usually narrow the field to two or three agencies. Vendor selection then moves to presentations and reference checks.

Presentations

Give each finalist the same agenda and time. Ask them to bring the people who will actually work on the project, not only the sales lead. A useful format is a short walkthrough of their proposed approach followed by a working session on one of your real problems, such as the information architecture for a key section or the plan for content migration. You learn more from how a team thinks together than from a rehearsed deck.

References

Ask for references from projects of similar size and complexity, ideally in the region. Prepare the same questions for every call: was the project delivered as scoped, how were problems handled, would they hire the agency again, and what would they do differently? Reviewing an agency's published case studies before the call helps you ask about specifics.

RFP evaluation starts here

Once the compliance check is complete, the panel moves into RFP evaluation proper: individual scoring against the published criteria, a moderation meeting to discuss large differences, and a recorded decision. The detail of building and applying the weights is in our weighted scoring framework. For larger platforms, it also helps to understand the stages of enterprise website development so the panel can judge whether each proposal's plan is realistic, and if you are comparing specialist platform partners, see our guide to evaluating Sitecore partners.

Bringing Codeeo into your shortlist

If you are preparing a website RFP and want a delivery partner that answers on substance, Codeeo provides website design and development, UI/UX design, ecommerce, WordPress development and custom software for organisations across the UAE. The team has delivered 200+ projects across the UAE and the US, with 80+ people across Dubai, Riyadh and Karachi, and the Dubai office means your panel can meet the team in person during presentations. Get in touch to request a response to your RFP or to talk through your requirements before you issue it.