The 'inside track' to giving away your methodology

I have been brought in by finance people in the public sector to many projects where someone in the organization started discussing requirements directly with a vendor or vendors. In 90% of the cases, that person was from the private sector and this was their first public sector job. They didn't understand that procurement policies weren't just 'red tape', but actual mandates from taxpayers and government.

Sadly, many vendors get caught up thinking they have an inside track to a direct contract when someone from within the public sector contacts them and meets with them about a potential project. What these vendors don't realize, is anything they submit to a public sector entity is public record! PLUS, with public procurement policy being 'public' (posted to websites, etc), they can't pretend they thought the person that contacted them had the 'authority' to contract with them without following a process.

I've had vendors complain in workshops about having their 'ideas' stolen or seeing their methodology written into an RFP document so their competitors could use the same approach and ruin their advantage. Sadly, once they hand over that information, it is 'mostly' public record. Freedom of Information is a law, and that overrides any markings of the word 'confidential'. If something is marked confidential, one needs to be able to prove the information is proprietary and could not be obtained by any other means, nor obtained by any other client under similar circumstances! (Verify with your legal counsel about blanket statements of confidentiality, etc!!)

So, if contacted about a potential public sector project, make sure you ask the question about policy requirements (and be sure you ask the correct people!) Most of the times I've had to create a process AFTER someone had vendor meetings, the person conducting those meetings had recently moved from private sector to their first public sector position! My job was to 'level the playing field' and to make the process as transparent and fair as possible...that meant disclosing who had contact prior to the process! That opens the possibility of someone making an FOI request for information given in those meetings...