The RFP Process

Once the vendor has been selected it's time to write the contract. Usually this will require some amount of negotiation. This may be because the vendor has not quite fully met all requirements, or because the vendor has offered options in their proposal. There may also be some terms and conditions which need to be clarified. Importantly, there should be no material changes to the material provided in the proposal.

If there are material changes, especially if they are brought up at the last minute by the vendor, it may be time to go back and re-solicite the RFP. Proposals where vendors have no intention of honoring the terms, or which contain unreliable information are indicators of potential future problems with the vendor. While a vendor may legitimately indicate that a feature will be available at sometime in a future release of the product, a feature which is indicated as currently available should not be later discovered to be a planned feature rather than an actual feature.

A frequent cause of changes in the negotiation stage is problems with how the RFP itself was written. The more effort and thought that goes into the process early on, the fewer problems there will be at the end of the process. Problems that can be avoided include both errors of omission and fuzziness, as well as items that were included that were not essential to the desired result. Often these items can substantially drive up the costs.

Excess requirements, and unrealistic budget expectations can cause significant changes in negotiations. At this stage, many companies try to pare back the requirements to fit their budget. The result is often one where the final cost, while it meets the budget, delivers a far less substantial result than would have been produced by limiting the scope of the requirements earlier. Often, items that were cut could have been included as desired options rather than as requirements.