Buyers, the RFx or Request For... approach can save you precious time. In three stages, the aim is to progressively restrict and rationalise the selection of suppliers. So how do you go about it? Jean-Jacques Rechenmann, consultant and trainer specialising in RFx, explains.
- An express train passes through Pau, slowing down at the station but not stopping.
- But we can still get off?
- Some people have tried it, but they've had problems. That said, it's very fast...
This dialogue between two well-known comedians is remarkable for its absurdity. However, it illustrates what happens all too often in the usual tendering process.
Imagine the dialogue between the members of the bid opening committee for a call for tenders for the construction of a motorway viaduct.
- The financial offer from this supplier is really competitive, even if the number of stays supporting the deck does not quite match the quantity and quality required.
- But does the supplier guarantee resistance to landslides?
- Experiments have been carried out on other sites and there have been problems. That said, it is very competitive. And if we give a coefficient of 30 % to the price criterion, it is the best placed.
Less than 50 years later, the bridge collapsed during torrential rains, killing 43 people and injuring 16 others.
- That said, he was very competitive.
Caricatured reasoning? Not so sure. The tendering procedure traditionally assigns a coefficient to heterogeneous selection criteria. These include, for example, the service provider's track record and references, the relevance of the proposed solution, the transparency of the offer and, of course... the price! Price is often given the highest weighting. But that's without taking into account the existence of prohibitive criteria, which need to be defined in advance.
Request For...: a 3-stage process
The RFx or Request For... approach allows the selection criteria to be broken down by category. A three-stage process is used to progressively restrict the selection of suppliers.
RFI = Request For Information
At the very beginning of the process, only the criteria relating to the supplier as a company will be taken into account. Does it have a CSR policy? Does its size allow it to absorb your order volume without risk? Does its logistics enable it to deliver on time? There's no point in approaching a potential supplier whose offer is likely to be rejected, when the bids are opened, on the basis of criteria that could have ruled it out from the start of the selection process. Demand certain administrative documents, such as tax and social security certificates, at the RFI stage. And not when the final bid is submitted! In this way, the RFI phase saves both buyer and seller precious time.
RFP = Request For Proposal
At the end of the RFI phase, only suppliers who have been previously selected and duly qualified may be consulted.
However, this second stage is only justified if the buyer has issued functional specifications. In other words, it is possible to respond with several technological solutions. If the specifications are strictly technical, it would be possible to go straight to the price and choose the lowest bidder. Indeed, the very definition of quality is to write what needs to be done and to do what has been written. But this would mean depriving yourself of the strength of your suppliers' proposals, which can be one of the selection criteria in the RFI phase.
RFQ = Request For Quotation
At this final stage, the only suppliers still in the running are those whose capabilities and profile match your expectations, and whose bids are technically relevant. Absolute price will not be the only criterion. The transparency, clarity and justification of the financial offer will also be taken into account.
Selection criteria at every stage
For each of the three stages in the decision-making process, the buyer will have first established binary and prohibitive criteria. For example: EN9100 certification in aeronautics, the existence of a continuity plan or CSR based on the ISO 26000 standard.
In the Request For Information phase, such criteria may be considered as non-negotiable selection criteria. This is for reasons of security or the image of the purchasing company. The panel of candidate suppliers will therefore be advantageously reduced at the very start of the process.
The same will apply in the Request For Proposal phase, with the rejection of bids based on solutions or technologies deemed unacceptable or unsuitable.
In the Request For Quotation phase, the filtering carried out in RFI and RFP will have left only a very limited number of proposals. This will make selection easier, as it will be carried out on a quantitative basis. Negotiations by mutual agreement with the last candidate suppliers will naturally lead to the final choice of the successful candidate. And all this in agreement with the internal stakeholders.
Request For...: a successful experiment!
The recent experience of a major pharmaceutical laboratory illustrates this Request For approach. The procurement project concerned the acquisition of a new IT platform for clinical trials.
In order to draw up the functional specifications on which the suppliers would base their offers, around a hundred stakeholders in the project were interviewed. These were mainly doctors working in the test centres around the world, but also the data scientists processing computer data, and a handful of experts.
The project steering committee summarised their expectations in the form of functional specifications. More specifically, by classifying the functions identified as "must-have", "should-have" and "could-have". Bids that did not meet the "must" criteria were of course rejected. The others could be rated objectively by the number of "should" functions duly taken into account in the bid.
In conclusion, the feedback was positive both in terms of the choice of supplier and the IT solution chosen. But the most unexpected result of the Request For process was the speed with which users took to the new platform!
