Selecting the Best Fit Technology Vendor
What you’ll learn
- Understand the purpose of different stages of the RFP process.
The RFP Process
A Request For Proposal (RFP) is a business document that announces a project, defines it, and invites eligible contractors to submit bids to finish it. They are preferred by most corporations globally. They're best utilized to objectively compare answers and select the most suitable solution vendor. The RFP Process is primarily divided into four sections:Documentation
Documentation is the first step for initiating the RFP process for an organization. These are the required steps for sending out the documentation to the vendors:
- Draft a well-structured document that is dependent on the needs of the company
- Sort the questions into categories and align them to the scorecard
- Include the pricing scheme for the solution in the documentation
- Compile all the data that could be useful for the vendors and send it out along with the RFP to avoid frequent back and forth
- Mention the deadline in the email and the front page of RFPs
Analytics
Analysis of vendors can be done through a vendor evaluation scorecard. These are a few things to consider while creating a scorecard:
- Create the scorecard in excel for saving time
- Map the scorecard to the questionnaire that is sent out
- Assign weights to the features
- Include pricing as a weighted category
The followings things should be considered after getting back responses from the vendors:
- Score the documents on a scale of 1 to 5 for each question:
- 1: the requirement cannot be met
- 2: the requirement can be met by partnering with 3rd party solution
- 3: the requirement can be met with a future release of the software
- 4: the requirement can be met via customization
- 5: the requirement is readily met
- Read questions across instead of down
- Take notes while evaluating the vendors
- Keep a list of follow-up questions for the vendors based on their responses
- Filter vendors based on the preferences and functionality fit
On-Site Demo
On-site demo or an extended demo is useful to give detailed insight to the treasury department.For an onsite-demo ensure the following steps:
- Tailor the demonstration to the specific requirements of the user and not generalized
- Record the sessions
- Invite all the stakeholders involved in the process, including the IT and procurement team
Final Selection Process
The final stage for vendor selection is the contracting and negotiating phase. This is where both the vendors and the users agree upon the terms to ensure a successful buy-in.
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