Project Information

Bid Title

TN Next Gen ERP Requirements Review - UPDATED

Issuing Agency

State Government of Tennessee

Location

Tennessee

Published Date

Jan 28, 2026

Closing Date

Feb 17, 2026

Government Level

State & Local

Status

Closed

Ref. #

RFI 31701-03815

Original Source

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Bid Documents

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Project Description

Document ID & Hyperlink:	RFI 31701-03815 Amendment 1
Event Start - Response Due:	12/15/2025 02/17/2026
Event Name:	TN Next Gen ERP Requirements Review - UPDATED
Last Updated:	01/28/2025

Attachment Preview

STATE OF TENNESSEE

DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE & ADMINSTRATION- STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

FOR

TN NEXT GEN ERP REQUIREMENTS REVIEW

RFI # 31701-03815

12/15/2025

1. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE:

The State of Tennessee, Department of Finance & Administration – Strategic Technology

Solutions (STS) issues this Request for Information (“RFI”) to obtain vendor feedback on

draft requirements and deliverables for the State’s future Enterprise Resource Planning

(“ERP”) solution. We appreciate your input and participation in this process.

2. BACKGROUND:

Strategic Technology Solutions (“STS”) provides centrally managed information technology

(“IT”) infrastructure services for the statewide Enterprise Resource Planning (“ERP”) system

for the State of Tennessee. STS is responsible for the system’s ongoing upgrades,

maintenance, and operations.

The current ERP system has been in production since 2008 and supports key business

functions including human capital management, financial and supply chain management,

enterprise learning management, customer relationship management, and interactive

hubs/portals. This system is expected to reach its end of life in 2035.

STS has developed preliminary requirements and deliverables for the future ERP solution.

The purpose of this Request for Information (“RFI”) is to introduce these draft requirements

to the ERP vendor community and solicit feedback, comments, and recommendations.

Input received through this RFI may help refine the State’s requirements and ensure that

the forthcoming Request for Proposals (“RFP”), planned for release in 2026, aligns with

industry best practices and current technology capabilities. This collaborative process is

RFI # 31701-03815

1

intended to support a more effective and efficient RFP phase for both the State and

potential solution providers.

3. COMMUNICATIONS:

3.1. Please submit your response to this RFI to:

Chris Romaine, MBA | Senior Manager

STS Contracts and Solicitations

901 Rep. John Lewis Way North, Nashville, TN 37243

Phone: 615-253-4629

Christopher.Romaine@tn.gov

3.2. Please feel free to contact the Finance & Administration - STS with any questions

regarding this RFI. The main point of contact will be:

Chris Romaine, MBA | Senior Manager

STS Contracts and Solicitations

901 Rep. John Lewis Way North, Nashville, TN 37243

Phone: 615-253-4629

Christopher.Romaine@tn.gov

3.3. Please reference RFI # 31701-03815 with all communications to this RFI.

4. RFI SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

EVENT

TIME

(Central Time

Zone)

DATE

(all dates are State

business days)

1. RFI Issued

12/15/2025

2.

Initial Vendor Background Questionnaire

Due

2:00 PM

12/22/2025

3. NDA due

2:00 PM

1/7/2026

State to release Attachment 3 to vendors

4.

that pass Initial Vendor Background

Questionnaire check and complete the

NDA.

5.

Vendor Written Questions & Comments

Deadline

2:00 PM

1/8/2026

1/20/2026

6.

State Response to Written Questions &

Comments

1/29/2026

RFI # 31701-03815

2

7. RFI Response Deadline

2:00 PM

2/17/2026

5. GENERAL INFORMATION:

5.1. Please note that responding to this RFI is not a prerequisite for responding to any

future solicitations related to this project and a response to this RFI will not create any

contract rights. Responses to this RFI will become property of the State.

5.2. The information gathered during this RFI is part of an ongoing procurement. In order to

prevent an unfair advantage among potential respondents, the RFI responses will not

be available until after the completion of evaluation of any responses, proposals, or

bids resulting from a Request for Qualifications, Request for Proposals, Invitation to

Bid or other procurement method. In the event that the state chooses not to go

further in the procurement process and responses are never evaluated, the responses

to the procurement including the responses to the RFI, will be considered confidential

by the State. This RFI, its attachments, and the responses to this RFI may retain

confidentiality under Tenn. Code Ann. § 10-7-504.

5.3. The State will not pay for any costs associated with responding to this RFI.

5.4. The State may request presentations/interviews/ (follow up conversations) from

select RFI respondents.

5.5. The State is not currently providing cost information or requesting cost information

from RFI respondents at this time.

5.6. Responses should be prepared, with emphasis on completeness and clarity, and

should NOT exceed fifteen (15) pages in length (excluding the requirements

spreadsheet). Responses, as well as any reference material presented, must be

written in English, and must be written on standard 8 ½” x 11” pages and all text must

be at least a 12-point font. All pages must be numbered.

5.7. Access to ERP requirements document is restricted. Respondents must submit the

Initial Vendor Background Questionnaire (Attachment 1). Upon the State’s review and

approval of the Questionnaire, Respondents must also complete a Non-Disclosure

Agreement (NDA) (Attachment 2). Specific ERP requirements documents will be

shared by the RFI coordinator upon receipt of the signed NDA.

RFI # 31701-03815

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6. INFORMATIONAL FORMS:

The State is requesting the following information from all interested parties. Please fill out the

following forms:

RFI #31701-03815

TECHNICAL INFORMATIONAL FORM

1. RESPONDENT LEGAL ENTITY NAME:

2. RESPONDENT CONTACT PERSON:

Name, Title:

Address:

Phone Number:

Email:

3. Provide a brief description of experience providing similar scope of services/products

4. Review the attached “modernization requirements” Attachment 3 excel document and provide

feedback. There are instructions on the first tab titles “Overview & Instructions.”

• Which requirements are concerning?

• Which requirements need to be reconsidered?

Please consider these types of things when adding comments in the attachment 3 spreadsheet.

5. Provide your organization’s vision for the future of ERP in the era of generative AI. Explain how

generative AI is transforming ERP platforms today, and describe the major advancements,

capabilities, and architectural changes you expect to emerge over the next five (5) years. Discuss

how these trends will influence system usability, automation, analytics, agentic workflows,

extensibility, and customer value.

6. The State requires that the proposed ERP solution includes a native, extensible, secure, and

auditable AI architecture capable of supporting at least ten (10) years of successful operations and

continued innovation after go-live. Respondents must provide clear, technically detailed answers to

questions 7-34 below.

7. AI Architecture & Design (Questions 7-10)

• Describe the AI architecture of your ERP platform.

o Is the platform built on AI-native architecture, or does it rely on bolt-on AI capabilities?

o Identify architectural components for AI inference, orchestration, data pipelines, semantic

layers, and model lifecycle management.

8. Explain how AI interacts with core ERP data structures.

o Describe ingestion, transformation, vectorization, and isolation mechanisms.

o Explain security and governance applied to data used for AI.

9. Does your platform support containerization to segment or isolate AI workloads and restrict AI

RFI # 31701-03815

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access to specific modules or tasks?

o Describe supported containerization strategies.

10. Describe how AI capabilities are embedded in the platform (native modules, microservices, APIs,

model hosting, etc.) and how new AI components can be introduced without re-platforming.

11. Models Used (LLMs, SLMs, Proprietary Models) (Questions 11-13)

• Identify the Large Language Models (LLMs), Small Language Models (SLMs), and other AI/ML models

used in your platform.

o Provide model names and versions, or indicate if proprietary.

o Describe which business functions each model supports (e.g., HCM, Finance, Supply Chain).

12. Explain your model selection and routing strategy.

o Do you support dynamic model routing?

o Can the customer bring their own model (BYOM/BYOLLM)?

13. Describe your approach to tuning and customization.

o Do you support fine-tuning, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), prompt orchestration, or

supervised feedback loops?

o How is State-specific data isolated from global model training?

14. Reasoning, Explainability & Chain-of-Thought (Questions 14-15)

• How is chain of thought (CoT) tracked within your platform?

o What level of visibility does the State have into AI reasoning steps?

o Is CoT auditable?

o Can the State disable, restrict, or mask chain-of-thought content for compliance purposes?

15. Describe any explainability features provided.

o How does the platform generate rationales for recommendations or actions?

o Are confidence scores, risk indicators, or model certainty values exposed?

16. Agentic Capabilities (Questions 16-18)

• Do you provide agentic AI capabilities?

o Identify the underlying agent framework.

o Describe what tasks agents can autonomously execute within the ERP platform.

17. Describe how agent behavior is governed, monitored, and audited.

o Human-in-the-loop controls

o Guardrails and access restrictions

o Approvals or limits on autonomous actions

o Audit trail of digital agents vs. human end users – same or variances?

RFI # 31701-03815

5

Commodity Codes

• NAICS 541330Engineering Services
• NAICS 541511Custom Computer Programming Services
• NAICS 541611Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services
• NAICS 541690Other Scientific and Technical Consulting Services

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