If you invest the time, carefully designing the RFP/RFQ you can expedite the evaluation process and experience greater savings through better supplier selections. There are many formats for Requests for Proposals (RFP) or Requests for Quotes (RFQ). A common outline is:

• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Company
• Background
• Current Environment/FAQs
• Objective of RFQ/RFP
• Description of Product and or Services to Be Quoted
• Constraints/Disclaimers
• Response Format
• Timeline and Response Due Date
• Contact Information

Obviously, this simplistic RFP or RFQ does not take into account Public Sector laws, processes or procedures. The RFP/RFQ document is often generically written and accompanied with a customized cover letter for each bidder. What separates an efficient RFP/RFP from a time waster is how you ask for pricing and service levels.

It is challenging to write the RFP/RFQ so that it is easy to respond to as well as efficient for comparing bids without spending time sorting through each supplier’s marketing/feature/FUD verbiage. Whatever the commodity, boil the service or product down to cost/unit. Request incremental prices for other requirements from this base. Break the bundle. Every supplier wants to bundle their product to hide inefficiencies. This tactic often covers up poor cost accounting systems. Insist that in order to be considered a supplier, they must unbundle their offering and price components.

The creation of this type of RFQ/RFP requires you to build an additional document in Excel that can contain all the specific requirements on multiple worksheet tabs and entry cells. Excel also gives you the added advantage of being able to protect the rest of the spreadsheet from supplier’s marketing/feature/FUD verbiage. DIY Consulting Module 08 - Conduct Sourcing Events (Coming Soon) uses this approach in building its sourcing tools. Include a summary worksheet tab that you protect and can build formulas back to the bid sheets.

If your product or service is complex or unique, such as consulting services or software development, then in addition to the spreadsheet and other written responses ask the suppliers to give a short presentation and submit to a Q&A with predefined questions. You want their best answers from their firm not just the guy or gal that can answer well on their feet (they may not even end up on the project).

These components of the RFP/RFQ response are leading to a scorecard. Developing a scorecard prior to issuing the RFP/RFQ is a good investment. The scorecard must weigh each requirement that you value for this product or service and provide for a definitive ranking of the suppliers offerings.

By building an efficient bid sheet and a quantitative scorecard, you can save time and money with your sourcing event.

Good Sourcing!