Despite the ripple effects of geopolitical turmoil and economic uncertainty, 2024 brought hope to the B2B community, supporting growth and upward momentum for organizations across the country. Unemployment rates stayed low, inflation cooled, and the US economy grew by 3.1% in the third quarter. With the S&P up 23% YTD, slowly falling interest rates, and new AI-driven efficiencies driving costs down and margins up, businesses have good reason to be optimistic as 2025 unfolds.
This year’s 9th Annual QorusDocs Proposal Management Benchmark Survey reflects that optimism, highlighting how companies are tackling industry and operational challenges by simplifying and accelerating their response process (with a little help from generative AI) to drive growth, reduce costs, and maximize revenue-generating potential (think 50% gains!).
About the survey
For this year’s industry snapshot, we took the pulse of the B2B proposal and RFP landscape, with a focus on service industries—Professional Services (accounting, consulting, staffing), Legal, IT Services and SaaS, and Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC)—that tend to complete more pitches and complex pursuits.
We reached out to professionals in proposal, business development, sales and marketing, and C-suite roles who are involved in creating pitches or proposals or responding to RFPs, RFIs, due diligence questionnaires, or security questionnaires. We surveyed companies of varying sizes—the majority with more than 1,000 employees and greater than $100M revenue (2023)—from multiple industries.
As in past years, we evaluated the organizational impact of the RFP response process, measuring win rates (for both new and existing business), associated revenue, and the opportunity cost of inefficient response management practices. We also explored how organizations are leveraging generative AI to optimize pitch and proposal activities (e.g., content generation, SME collaboration) and measured the benefits of automating the response process with AI proposal management software.
Let’s take a peek into what we discovered in 2024:
5 Key Takeaways
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Huge revenue potential of generative AI
This year’s survey results revealed an opportunity for organizations to add millions in annual revenue to their top line, thanks to AI-driven productivity. By using generative AI to optimize the response process, organizations can boost efficiency and performance to increase RFP response output by 50%, translating to a potential estimated $21M boost in revenue.
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Pitch and RFP volume on the rise
Companies were proactive in 2024, seeking out new business opportunities and building on existing client business to grow revenue. Half of the survey respondents experienced a YoY increase in RFP volume, while 54% of organizations reported in increase in YoY pitch volume.
The legal sector had some particularly good news in 2024: while 82% of legal respondents experienced stagnant RFP volumes in 2023, 67% of law firms reported an increase in RFP volumes in 2024, with the majority experiencing gains of six to 10 RFPs per month.
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New business win rates gaining momentum
While income attributed to winning RFP responses for existing clients continued to be greater than RFP revenue from new client business (46% vs. 36%), organizations experienced encouraging results in their quest to secure deals with new clients in 2024. A majority of respondents experienced win rates for new business of 25%- 49% (median 37%), representing a jump from 2023 when the majority reported disappointing new client win rates of 30% or less.
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Organizations reaping rewards of proposal management software
AI-powered proposal management software is helping organizations simplify, streamline, and accelerate their response process to keep the revenue flywheel spinning. The greatest positive impacts of proposal management software were the ability to complete responses in less time, an improvement in response quality, and the capacity to personalize and customize response documents (e.g., pitches, proposals, RFP responses) faster and more effectively.
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Microsoft 365 is top choice for generating responses
Choosing which software to use to create pitches, proposals, and RFx responses impacts both the efficiency of your response process and the quality of your documents. In 2024, Microsoft 365 stood out as the overwhelming crowd favorite (yet again), with 93% citing M365 as their primary application for generating request responses; respondents favored MS Word (54%) and PowerPoint (27%).
Get more insider stats to boost win rates
To explore these key takeaways in greater depth and discover more actionable insights to help you boost the performance of your response process, check out the complete 9th Annual Proposal Management Benchmark Survey.
Pro tip: If you’re new to proposal management and wondering where generative AI fits in, watch our fearless leader, CEO Ray Meiring, discuss how AI proposal management software can transform your response process in this on-demand webinar.
You might also our Ultimate Guide to Mastering AI-powered Proposals, Pitches, and RFP Responses, The Definitive Guide to AI in Proposal Management, or Info-Tech Research Group’s comprehensive case study of two QorusDocs QPilot customers.
And if you’re looking to create winning responses, maximize billable hours, and maintain cash flow for your professional services organization in 2025, visit our Professional Services Resource Hub for all your proposal management needs.
