Question

How should your firm evaluate or assess if you should respond to the Request for Proposals

(RFP)?

Answer 1

Answer:

The methodology followed for evaluating RFP depends entirely on how the initial RFP was designed. RFP can vary in sophistication from a simple statement: We at XYZ Corp need a new ERP system. Please submit a proposal by 14th January to a carefully thought out set of questions and criteria that are designed to elicit responses which facilitate accurate evaluation and comparison.

• Does your system interfere with ABC accounting system?
• Please list the application specific interfaces provided by your system.
• List your three most recent customers discontinued using your system, and their stated reason for doing so

The first type of RFP will elicit very different proposals from different vendors, making it difficult to make a side-by-side comparison. By contrast the second type of RFP lands itself directly to the objective evaluation. In either case, the crucial thing is break down the evaluation into discrete criteria. The most common method of evaluation is which something referred as "weighted attribute analysis". This means assigning weights to each evaluation criteria. The weight reflects the importance of the question and defines its contribution to the total score.When the vendors have submitted their response, the answers are scored, and a weighted total score can be calculated. Stakeholder's opinions can be captured in an evaluation process by having vendor's responses scored by different people in parallel. These scores can then be averaged, or an agreed score can be decided on based on discussion.