Subscriber Discussion

Intergrators - What Is Your Average Turn Around Time For A Quote?

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Mar 16, 2019

We are looking to refine our processes and I am interested to hear where other integrators are at when it comes to the time it takes to get quotes out the door.   Single camera quote to +1million dollar quotes.  What is the average time it takes for you to get a quote the door from when a customer requests a quote? 

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #2
Mar 16, 2019

That's a pretty broad range to really define.  A million dollar project could take 2 weeks to a month.  A singe camera project could be hammered out same day.  The real challenge I have experienced is how they all queue up in addition to other job responsibilities.  Is the $2 million project most important?  Is the $50k job with a new customer sitting on hundreds of sites more important?  Or is the ten $7k single camera add projects for our highest profile client the one to work on?  Those items significantly add to the delay.  I do not think there is a good time frame statement that can be put out there.

Refining your internal processes is never a bad initiative.  The time frame that you are targeting is the most important.  I would highly recommend purchasing some estimating/quoting software with a database backing it.  We haven't made it there yet but can imagine that would shave serious time.

 

Also, I love when customers request urgent, same day quotes that just linger for months or never actually come to fruition.

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UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Mar 17, 2019

Yes, you are always going to have to deal with your long term customers with daily quote requests along with new customer quote request.  When a customer requests a quote from you how long do you tell them till they will see the quote?  What is your goal to turn around quotes/designs?

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #2
Mar 17, 2019

Our flat statement is two weeks from date of site inspection, not the engagement/phone call.

Your expectations should be different if your business model is different.  For my company project managers own the project cradle to grave: sales, design, quoting, submittals, material procurement, labor management, closeout, billing, etc.  There is no dedicated quoting personnel.  If you have dedicated estimators, sales personnel, and sales engineers I think shorter timeframes are realistic.

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UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Mar 17, 2019

How many project managers do you have? 

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #2
Mar 20, 2019

Roughly 20.

mc
mark cernese
Mar 20, 2019

That's a sizeable number. Curious, what is their annual quota/production expectation?

 

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #2
Mar 21, 2019

$1.5 million on the low end.

UE
Undisclosed End User #4
Mar 19, 2019

I'll throw in some input as a former system designer and now an end user that works for a gov agency.

I'm fully aware of how ANNOYING it is to bust your rear to knock out a quote in a day, only to have it linger for MONTHS on end and then pop up out of no where with a requirement to be installed in a few weeks.  Man, that drove me up the freaking WALL when I was a designer!

 

But, unfortunately, that's just how budget cycles play out sometimes. We need to plan to spend money, then when the money shows up, it's got to be spent NOW. 

At least since I've been on both sides of that situation, I try to be very open with my vendors. I'll tell them straight up, 'this is a budget number, aim high, it probably won't be cashed in for 6-8 months' so they know not to bank it in their pipe line.

 

Having said that, as an end user, I get really grumpy when a really simple 5 camera quote (99% of which I even designed for the vendor, going as far as to select the camera) takes them more than 2 weeks to send back to me.

I'm about to run a bid walk for a series of projects that total about $90k and I'm setting a 2 week due date.  It's a bunch of little things, nothing really complicated and I've essentially selected the cameras already. 

 

(3)
UI
Undisclosed Integrator #3
Mar 17, 2019

Depends on the project, most our stuff is small in the grand scheme of things. 20-50K. We always do a site survey, and from the site survey, it is usually about a week, depending how busy we are, and what their urgency is.

 

I have one that wants to start 3 projects in 10 days, so I did the surveys on Saturday, and working on the quote on Sunday...

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #5
Mar 19, 2019

We do large commercial and industrial projects 25K-250K and I would say an average time to quote is two weeks. The hardest part about getting to put the quote together is finding the quiet time to work on it. We have too many distractions; customers calling with repair/requests, employee problems, and meetings. My job is supposed to be doing proposals/quotes as head of sales, but there are a lot of work related issues that come up during the day. Plus, sometimes, customers also lack timely turn around when I ask them for related items that I am dependent on to complete the quote. Good luck with your quotes. 

U
Undisclosed #6
Mar 20, 2019

I would suggest it's impossible to provide a firm answer within the parameters given, although I understand you're probably looking for rough estimates.

Bottom line, the big question is whether or not the integrator receives a detailed scope of work with equipment outlined, or whether it's a case of "here is what I want, now design it and quote it for me." 

That said, my general TARGETS for quotes that had reasonably-defined scopes of work or that I was very familiar with the customer requirements....note that in this case, "device" = cameras or card readers:

* 1-2 devices = 2-3 business days (no site survey required as long as I have a general idea of the site or have photos and a drawing), sometimes as little as a few hours, totally dependent upon schedule.

* 3-8 devices = 2-5 business days (site survey perhaps required depending on location, and then it's 5 days from that site survey), sometimes as little as a few hours, totally dependent upon schedule.

* 9-16 devices = 5-7 business days from site survey (required), less if not complex

*>16 devices = roughly 1-2 weeks, depending on complexity

*>50 devices = 2-4 weeks, depending on complexity

For me, any time i had a quote that was ~8 devices or less, I would always be disappointed in myself if I couldn't get it out within a week, assuming it's not terribly complex.

Under no circumstances was it ever really acceptable for a quote except the largest ones to go beyond 2 weeks, although it happened more than I would've liked to admit.

Suffice to say I'm glad I'm no longer in that specific world, as there were times I didn't get much sleep...

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Steve Beck
Mar 20, 2019

Anywhere from 5 minutes (One camera indoor short run type of deal) to two and a half weeks (Big quotes). Just all depends on what they are looking for. 

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Richard Vincent
Mar 21, 2019

It truly depends. If the job and easy to estimate with a quick onsite visit the turn around generally speaking is 24 hours.

If an engineering assessment is needs with multi-sites and design builds the turn around can take much longer.

We do our best to provide a awesome customer experience but we do not rush the engineering of our quotes and proposals. If we do not have the time to use our process and make timeline we do not bid.

This is in our opinion better for all parties.

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Sean Patton
Mar 21, 2019

I'm not an integrator anymore but was for a dozen years, so my mental target for the time a quote should take to get out the door is: roughly equal to how long the job is going to take to complete.

The 2-4 camera installs that will take a tech 1 day to complete: the customer needs to have the quote next business day at the latest. You need to have it in their hand while it is top of mind when it's something that small.

20-50 cameras, 1-2 week project for installation, you want to review that quote with a project manager, don't miss any parts, make sure storage calculations are correct. Take a week if you need it, to make sure it's 100% before it goes out the door. Up to 2 weeks is pushing it, after 2 weeks, forget about it.

It was nothing I had written in stone, but something I tried to follow when maintaining and engineering for my customers. If you are part of a larger organization or need help creating a bill of material and labor estimates from other people, it will make it much more difficult to stick to those timelines.

 

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Scott Bradford
Mar 22, 2019
IPVMU Certified

I really like this. It's not set in stone, but I think it's a reasonable target. People can't expect you to turn around a million dollar, 100 camera project in 2 weeks. 

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UI
Undisclosed Integrator #2
Mar 23, 2019

Scaling the quote timeframe with the project is interesting.  Now that I think back on it some of our larger projects in the 500 or so camera range with 50 doors definitely pushed past a month to provide anything more than a budgetary number.  I am stealing this one. 

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Sean Patton
Mar 23, 2019

It's just a simple rule of thumb, and one most customer's can understand from my experience. You can have it =)

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Lynn Harold
Mar 21, 2019

This is a great discussion and I'm glad the answers are all over the place with respect to turn-around times.  While I like to provide a full proposal in 2 weeks or less, there are a lot of dependencies, most of which have already been described.   Another factor that influences response times for larger projects are inaccurate or unreadable floor plans, and the need to do take-offs manually when said plans are an image, not a real CAD that I can scan.

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Jon Dillabaugh
Mar 22, 2019
Pro Focus LLC

Depends on the scale and complexity, but about a week on average. Simple indoor, retail, drop ceiling proposals are easier and quicker. Outdoor with poles and lifts or wireless backhaul take longer to account for everything. No two are alike. 

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Tim Warnock
Mar 22, 2019

A lot of it depends on how much "discovery" is involved versus how much information the client can provide you with to help clarify the scope of work. For example, I recently spend a month turning around a quote on upgrading a 5 building facility with an ancient and distributed access control system. The drawings they provided were outdated and in pieces and parts. They could provide very little information as to where RS-485 based 1 door controllers were located, or much info on where anything was located for that matter. Spent several days looking above doors in closets, etc, to find as much of the existing system as possible. In the end I had to build a lot of "discovery" labor in to the project because I knew we would have to figure out most of it on the fly.

For larger projects, especially retrofits/upgrades, the more information the customer can provide up front, including accurate floor plans, is directly related to how fast a quote can be turned around.

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