Last-Minute Proposal Craziness

Image by rickz via FlickrI've seen my share of 'last minute' craziness for vendors to get their proposals accepted (here's the most common & why they don't work):

1) Speeding down the highway - I don't recommend putting lives at stake for a proposal - besides the potential accidents/tickets, if you get there even 1 second late - you'll have wasted all that gas for nothing. Legally, I can't accept your late proposal, no matter how mad/frustrated you get. Regardless of the threats of calling your MLA, I will not put my organization at risk of being sued by everyone else that did submit on time.

2) Calling with excuses - I've heard my share of sobstories, and I feel for your adorable little nephew who recently came down with leukemia - but again, it's not my cold-heart telling you I cannot accept your proposal after the closing, it's the courts. A bid even one second late is non-compliant (see #1 above).

3) E-mail - our legal department decided that email isn't legally binding, so I cannot accept your emailed version of the hardcopy proposal that is enroute via courier. There are 'some' organizations that accept emails, but unless it's written in the RFP as an accepted method of delivery, the email proposal is non-compliant.

4) Faxes - yes a faxed signature is legally accepted in Canada. However, the issue with fax machines is missing pages, paper jams, a single phone line for multiple uses - so generally, no, we won't accept a 50+page proposal via fax...again, any exceptions will be noted in the RFP document, but as a general rule, only tenders/bids/quotes of 1-5 pages are accepted by fax.

5) Bad Weather - I've worked with various public sector organizations in BC since 1999, and in that time, they've NEVER extended the closing date of an RFP due to bad weather conditions on the day of the closing. In fact, I've been told, the only time the BC Purchasing Commission extended the closing date of proposals due to bad weather was during the "1996 snow storm" (it shut down ferries, collapsed roofs, etc). So if you're having difficulties due to weather on the morning of the RFP closing, it is unlikely you will get an extention - especially if the organization already received proposals yesterday from the people who paid attention to the weather channel.

Measuring Success Rates on RFP proposals

Image by Camilla Ferrari via Flickr

Another topic of discussion on LinkedIn...

Response Rates to an RFP

I assume we have all responded to an RFP in the past. I am interersted in hearing from you what your success rate has been with the RFP's that you have responded to this year.

My response: I'm on the buying side and while I believe it is good to measure your 'success rate', I hope you are measuring a few other parameters to put it into context (ie not just looking at how many RFPs you responded to vs how many you were successful on) because this year was a little different.

1) are you checking how many opportunities in your field have been available (whether you responded or not) - ie did you notice there were less RFPs for your field this year than in previous years (in BC, definitely there were less consulting opportunities due to spending freezes)

2) are you finding out how many people are responding to each opportunity? Not that every buying organization will disclose this, but I can say for a fact we've had MORE companies respond than in past years... for example in the early 2000s, I would normally receive about 12-14 proposals to each of my RFPs, then about mid 2005/2006 I was only getting about 5-6 and some only got 1-2 responses (everyone was busy), now we're back up to 15-20 proposals per RFP....

So, if you don't take these other factors into consideration, you may find your success rates 'look' lower this year