I hope that you have enjoyed the article “RFP Requirements For Strategic Purchases.”
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One of the things that I suggested in the article was to require suppliers to bid in total conformance with the RFP requirements, but to also give them the opportunity to submit cost savings and value creating ideas. Too often, buying organizations write their requirements so stringently that they end up paying more than they need to and they fail to take advantage of the expertise that resides in the supply base.
Requesting cost saving and value creating ideas in RFP’s can really open some doors to profit-boosting approaches that your organization may have never considered. Doing so can really help a procurement department achieve its maximum potential for financial impact.
This type of procurement contribution should not go unnoticed. But it very well might.
Therefore, you should record all of the implemented cost savings and added-value that results from soliciting these ideas from suppliers. Visualize yourself in the future, giving a presentation to your board of directors, saying “By adding one line to our standard RFP, we were able to boost profits by $10,000,000 over the past five years.”
Pretty powerful, huh?
Don’t let the results from this technique go unmeasured.
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Recommended Reading
- RFP Templates: Use ‘em, Don’t Abuse ‘em
- Request for Proposal (RFP) Template
- Sample RFP Preparation Letter
- Supplier RFP Scorecard
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- American Bar Association to Fortune 500: Clean up your Supply Chain
- Ammunition For Expanding Services Purchasing
