Debriefing vendors after an RFP process is something I actually 'enjoy' doing. I still feel nervous about them (because of 3 situations that went badly, one of which the person nearly jumped over the table at me)...but for the most part, I see debriefings as a means to help vendors understand the process and to write better proposals. As well, I can ask vendors what they liked/didn't like/didn't understand from the RFP document so I can build a better one next time (so they debrief me as well). In my opinion, better proposals mean better competition and better value for money. I don't like the idea that the company with the biggest budget for professional proposal writers is more likely to win over the company with the best methodology/experience with little to no time to write a decent response. Sadly, that's "likely" the case...so we need to build a better process - I'm still working on that :)
In the meantime, I'm not writing any RFPs/conducting debriefings at the moment, so am lacking the necessary feedback to help. So right now, I'd like to enquire from the vendor community - what is it you want to know from the buyer, what do you want to understand about the RFP process. I know many people say it 'sucks', but that's not helping to solve the problem - at the moment, that's the process that is deemed 'open, fair, transparent' for selecting goods/services without individual influence over outcome...
Ask away, I've got 20 yrs of these things rattling away in my head, I need to know how to give you all this information :)
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