I hope that you have enjoyed the article “A 20-Point Proposal Evaluation Checklist.”

Don’t miss updates on Procurement & Supply Chain, Subscribe here!

Thanks to a wonderfully positive reaction to the last PurchTips article, “A 21-Point Negotiation Checklist,” I thought that I’d do another checklist. And the purpose of a checklist is to simplify the process of going through a large number of steps. There’s no shame in using a checklist – pilots use them before every flight. I hope that both checklists help to make your job easier.

There were five items on the proposal evaluation checklist that I wanted to explain further. Here are two, I’ll discuss the rest beginning next week…

• Did the supplier provide financial statements? The RFP is the time to ask for supplier financial statements. Privately-held suppliers are usually very reluctant to share these, so when they are competing for the business – as opposed to already having, or having assurance of, your business – is the time when you have the leverage necessary to receive them.
• Did the supplier provide a cost breakdown? Suppliers are also reluctant to provide cost breakdowns. For the same reason that the RFP is the right time to request financial statements, the RFP is the right time to request a cost breakdown.

Stay tuned for a breakdown of the other three checklist items.