The Challenge
SugarAI, the CRM company that rebranded from SugarCRM in April 2026, faced a tidal wave of security questionnaires, some with 2,000 questions. Each RFP needed roughly 12 to 18 questions routed to their SMEs (Subject Matter Experts).
These hard technical questions would steal up to 20+ minutes each of valuable engineering and security team time to answer. The challenge was acute as responses needed translation from technical engineering language into customer-friendly terms, creating back-and-forth between teams.
The same pressure showed up in the field. Solution consultants across Asia Pacific were the ones drafting answers from scratch, which pulled them away from the work only they can do. “Having well-curated responses readily available has allowed us to focus more on solution strategy and customer engagement rather than spending hours searching for content and drafting responses from scratch,” Trevor Carlsson, Director, Solution Consulting at SugarAI.
With security questionnaires growing in both number and size, SugarAI required something that could scale without expanding their team size.
The Solution
SugarAI implemented AutoRFP.ai to transform their RFP response process, focusing on automating their security questionnaire workflow. The AI RFP software’s intelligent pattern recognition could identify similar questions asked in different ways, dramatically reducing the need to involve SMEs for repetitive inquiries.
The platform centralized their response management, enabling the company to handle their entire global RFP process with remarkable efficiency: just one part-time RFP specialist and a quarter of a security specialist’s time, totaling approximately one FTE. This efficient approach allowed their technical experts to focus on their core responsibilities while maintaining high-quality, consistent responses.
Review is the step that keeps the bar high. “One of the features I particularly value is the review process. It gives us confidence that responses are aligned with our messaging and requirements before they’re submitted,” Trevor Carlsson, Director, Solution Consulting at SugarAI.
The team also uses Agent to tailor a draft to the opportunity in front of them, feeding it the context that only they have. “I also really appreciate the Agent functionality and the ability to refine responses by providing additional context. Being able to guide the Agent with organisation-specific information helps produce responses that are more relevant, accurate and tailored to the opportunity,” Trevor Carlsson, Director, Solution Consulting at SugarAI.
The Results
The impact was transformative. SugarAI won 60% of their top 25 customers through RFPs managed with AutoRFP.ai. In one notable win, they were the only vendor among five competitors to 100% complete a 2,000-question security questionnaire, directly leading to winning a $2M+ ARR customer. “We won the deal because they had faith in our security posture, and that trust came from our ability to answer all the questions. We were the only company that took the time to fully respond to every security question,” Shana Sweeney, Executive Leader at SugarAI. The platform enabled them to handle this volume while maintaining a remarkably lean team structure, managing all global RFP responses with just one FTE split across two roles.
The automation reduced SME involvement from 12 to 18 questions per RFP (each taking 20+ minutes) to only occasional specialized queries, saving hundreds of hours of valuable engineering time. Most importantly, this efficiency didn’t compromise quality. In fact, it enhanced it, with AutoRFP.ai’s AI RFP Software handling 90% of the initial response work and enabling the team to focus on customization and quality assurance.
Two years on, that shows up as a habit rather than a project. “AutoRFP.ai has become an important part of how we manage RFPs, and it’s made a measurable difference to both efficiency and response quality,” Trevor Carlsson, Director, Solution Consulting at SugarAI.
