{"id":3187,"date":"2012-05-04T16:21:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T16:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/2012\/05\/04\/one-more-request-for-proposal-rfp-planning-tip\/"},"modified":"2021-07-10T23:09:51","modified_gmt":"2021-07-11T03:09:51","slug":"one-more-request-for-proposal-rfp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.certitrek.com\/nlpa\/blog\/one-more-request-for-proposal-rfp\/","title":{"rendered":"One More Request For Proposal (RFP) Planning Tip"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hope that you have enjoyed the article, \u201c7 RFP Planning Tips<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was based on a podcast that I did with Bill Dorn, Vice President of Operations for Source One Management Services and the co-author of Managing Indirect Spend: Enhancing Profitability Through Strategic Sourcing.\u00a0 One of my goals for these podcasts is to get one article\u2019s worth of great material.\u00a0 However, when I have guest experts as insightful as Bill, I get much more!\u00a0 Not only did I get two articles worth of great material, but I also got one additional RFP tip that I\u2019ll share with you on this blog.<\/p>\n

So, without further ado, here is the 7th and final RFP tip that came out of the podcast:<\/p>\n

RFP Tip #7:\u00a0 Don\u2019t ask suppliers to pay to participate in your RFP process.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0 In a disturbing observation, some organizations have been involved in different situations where they have asked suppliers to pay to participate in the organizations\u2019 RFP processes.\u00a0 \u201cIn the most common scenario, a company puts together some RFP package, they notify the potential suppliers, and then they tell them they have to go to a particular website or eSourcing platform to retrieve the RFP,\u201d explains Dorn.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u201cOnce there, the supplier is asked to pay a\u2026subscription fee, or a network fee, or a registration fee, and that\u2019s anywhere from $50 to $500 just to retrieve the RFP.\u201d\u00a0 This emerging and the disturbing practice violates one of the important principles of good procurement: the more competition you have, the lower your prices will be.\u00a0 So, if you\u2019re reducing your competition because either a supplier may not have the exorbitant amount of money you\u2019re asking for or it\u2019s against their principles to pay it, you\u2019re reducing your competition, and as a result, you\u2019re not going to be getting the better prices that you would be getting.\u00a0 If a comparison were made, I would bet that the revenue that the procurement department brings in with this pay-to-play process is probably dwarfed many times over by the aggregate amount of the higher prices they pay.<\/span><\/div>\n
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