Procurement Acronymns

No matter who I speak to either in the procurement side of things, or in the vendor community, there is always confusion over what the heck is a RF__? Now, there are definitions in glossaries available on public sector/government websites, BUT the confusion may come from what is actually done in practice!

These processes are defined in a global sense (practices outside of just a single public sector entity), yet in practice may not be following the originally defined intent! This therefore confuses/discourages many in both the procurement and vendor community.

For instance:

An Expression of Interest (EOI) and the Request for Information (RFI) processes are information gathering processes - therefore the result is no-one enters into a Contract (no award is meant to be made from them). So there aren't any 'rules' per se under trade agreements or contract law. However, if someone posts an RFI, but intends to award a contract, or posts an EOI with the premise to prequalify and award contracts - the rules change - a court will say if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it doesn't matter what you call it, it's a duck! (in this case it would be an EOI disguised as an RFP).

The Request for Qualifications (RFQ) is meant to create a bidders' list (or Source List as the Agreement on Internal Trade defines it) . This is where misunderstandings occur, as the RFQ is really a 'phone list' of qualified vendors, but contracting from the list still has to follow trade and policy rules (so no direct awards should result unless for a small dollar value). So if you are on a prequalified list, it doesn't mean you have a free pass to eliminate writing proposals or responding to a competition for work later down the road!!!

Finally, the Request for Proposals (RFP) is the process where the intent is to select one or a few companies to enter into a contract. Most people are familiar with this process, and yet think it is the most cumbersome - this is ultimately due to court judgments on Contract A/Contract B issues (which is a topic for another time).

That's a quick summary for today's chat - stay tuned for tomorrow where we'll talk about another acronymn called "RFQ", and ITT & ITQs.

PS Send a note or post a comment if you'd like further elaboration on any of these topics!