Evaluation Criteria (graded)

The formulation of evaluation criteria has long-lasting implications

throughout the life cycle of a contract. The result should be picking the
right seller for the contract. In fact, the development of evaluation
criteria has often been debated to be one aspect of contract
procurement that needs to be closely coordinated ith both the
contract administrator and pro!ect manager. "hat are your thoughts on
the role that the contract manager should have in the development of
evaluation criteria# "hat about the pro!ect manager# "ho else should
be involved in establishing and applying the evaluation criteria#
The RFQ and RFPs are coordinated by the Contract Administrator, who oversees
the bidding and evaluation process for entire contract procurement process. The
evaluation committee considers the eperience, abilities, references and!or
bac"ground chec"s of the Applicant. contract administrator has a role to play in
the solicitation for services including the scope, re#uirements, and evaluation
criteria for selection. The aspects of evaluation criteria such as meeting the
$%A&s, overall pro'ect schedule and cost are some of the parts of the evaluation
criteria where contract administrator has a critical role in the development of tbe
evaluation criteria. Pro'ect scope and technical assessments related to the
current commitment of labour and plant resources, the ability to handle the type,
#uality, si(e of wor", and the ability to perform on site are some of the evaluation
carried out by the pro'ect manager.
Contract )anager should be more involved in the *valuation Criteria for the fact
that he is more aware of legal issues, compliance, guidance on contract matters,
and most especially contract polices that has to do with business strategy.
+owever, pro'ect manager needs to be more of a listener because it gives him
the sense to "now the "ey criteria that is most important to the customer in
"eeping the seller from deviating from the scope and the essentials of the
contract. ,otwithstanding, the customer should also be involved in establishing
and applying the evaluation criteria along with other groups of interest that are
supporting the contract.
-n creating thorough evaluation criteria you will need to see di.erent areas and
then blend them e.ectively. The Contract Administrator will have a good
understanding on how to set up an e#uitable echange, protect the company&s
interest, and ensure compliance by both parties. The P) may have a broader
range of understanding the wor"ing relationship between the buyer and seller
and how to manipulate the aspects to meet overall goals. - would also want
eperienced senior management team and speciali(ed eperts to weigh in for a
balanced evaluation criteria.
It is very common to $nd customers%clients that fail to identify the &'(
evaluation criteria during the procurement planning process, and in
fact do not de$ne the evaluation criteria until after proposals have
been received and the evaluation process is set to begin. "hat do you
think the risk of aiting is until bids have been received to establish
the evaluation criteria to be used to select a preferred vendor#
RFP *valuation criteria are guidelines that enable pro'ect participants to
standardi(e the pro'ect criteria to be considered during evaluation of a proposal.
Also, they provide vendors to understand how proposals will be evaluated. To
achieve these two purposes, evaluation criteria should be stated clearly in the
RFP so that they can be understood by both those responding to the RFP and by
those evaluating the proposals. Proper evaluation planning can ensure that the
pro'ect vision, goals, and re#uirements are clearly articulated and understood by
all potential responders and evaluators. Finally, not having an *valuation criteria
upfront and waiting until the receipt of bids could result in bias during evaluation
of the proposals.
-f you do not "now how evaluate the bids until after you get them you may end
up lac"ing the information you need or it may be inconsistent among the
bidders. /y doing it in advance the buyer can be assured he gets the information
they need to evaluate at a minimum. if more information or evaluation criteria
become apparent during the RFP process then it can decided whether to ma"e
changes. %eaving this chance or using criteria that is less than ideal create
unforseen issues in the /P0 process.
$ome customers don&t reali(e that being so vague with the criteria can cause
misinterpretation and frustration for the vendors. 1hen the customers don&t
specify how they are evaluating 2rms, we have to guess about what information
we should provide and what would be irrelevant. 1hen customers do this, they
run the ris" of missing out on a great potential vendor, who may not have
provided enough information to 2t their newly thought of criteria, but would have
been a perfect 2t. They also run the ris" of leaving themselves with vendors who
are not as capable as others.
*valuation criteria gives you the chance to identify vendors strenghts and
wea"ness. -t also gives the customer the chance to carefully evaluate the
situation at hand and ma"e the best decisoin for the company. ,ot having time
to evaluate can lead to the customers unsatifaction as well as unlimited ris". The
evaluation criteria shall be carefully eplained in the RFP in order for the
customer to ma"e a proper decision
there are at least three ris"s with this.
34 There is a signi2cant ris" to pro'ect schedule. 1hen the received bids come in,
there is a good chance that none of them will be eactly what the customer is
loo"ing for. This leads to a re5bid situation when the customer uses the 2rst bids
to 2nally develop an accurate scope.
64 There is also a ris" that a well #uali2ed vendor with a good price could be
2ltered out due to evaluation criteria that he!she wasn&t aware of. For instance, if
part of the evaluation criteria was the format of the bid submission and this
vendor made a submission error, its bid could be discarded.
74 ,ot publishing the evaluation criteria can lead to accusations of favoritism or
unfair evaluation criteria.
)o you think that clearly de$ning the evaluation criteria as part of the
procurement process also locks in the Client to making his%her selection
based on the speci$c criteria identi$ed, thus reducing the potential for
a client making a selection purely on sub!ective criteria (even through
the ranking of proposals on a pre-de$ned set of criteria could in itself
be sub!ective)#
The evaluation criteria should support the ob'ectives!goals of the /P0 decision.
-n turn, it would not ma"e sense to re#uest information from vendors 8via an RFQ
or an RFP4 that represents the client&s evaluation criteria. -n other words, the
ob'ectives!goals of the /P0 should be the 2rst priority in vendor selection.
-n de2ning the criteria, it would also set apart thost vendors whose focus would
be solely on costs rather than service. For eample, if - send out an RFP for
#uotes on products alone, the vendors will try to 'ust beat each other&s costs and
those will all be very similar. +owever, - am also loo"ing for shipping terms such
as delivery dates, costs, and uel surcharges, as well as ease of ordering and
returns such as online shopping lists and pic"5ups.
- do not thin" that de2ning the evaluation criteria as part of the procurement
process loc"s in the client to purely base their decision on the identi2ed criteria.
For one thing, more than one contractor can meet this criteria9 another thing, out
of these vendors, each brings its own strengths to the table, which play an
important part in the evaluation process.
*nce the evaluation criteria are agreed upon by the outsourcing team,
the customer should rank the vendors based on their ful$llment of the
criteria. (lease Identify the $ve common steps involved in the
evaluation of vendor proposals.
The structure and scope of the vendor evaluation process will vary depending on
the customer&s approach, the number of vendors being evaluated, time
constraints, and audit and report re#uirements. Five Common steps include:
;$electing "ey evaluation criteria
;-dentifying who will be as"ed to participate in the ran"ing of vendors
;*stablishing a scoring system
;1eighting the "ey criteria
;-mplementing 2nal sign5o. procedures
/y the end of the evaluation period, the customer should have identi2ed a
preferred vendor or vendors.
References:
/usiness process outsourcing : process, strategies, and contracts ! <ohn =.
+alvey, /arbara ). )elby.>6nd ed.
weighting the "ey criteria is a 'uggle among the outsourcing team. )ost often
every group, be it engineering, real estate, inventory, operation, and so on. *ach
department wants their portion to be a "ey criteria. This prolongs the decision
and may cause some dissatisfaction among the outsourcing team.
The 2ve steps are outlines as follows
3.4 -dentifying the =ey criteria. This includes deciding ahead of time what is
important and what is irrelevant
6.4 $etting up an evaluation team tas"ed with evaluating vendors based o.
criteria, This team should be representative of the departments a.ected and
have input on the criteria.
7.4 A scoring or weighting system for the criteria should be established.
?4 score and evaluate the vendors who respond to the RFP ! RFQ
@4 $elect and sign o. on the selected Aendor.
do you think that procurements are rarely protested due to unclear or
unspeci$ed evaluation criteria, or do you feel it happens more often
than e think# )o you feel a vendor is likely to protest a selection
process for the sake of getting the decision overturned and possibly
even getting selected, regardless of hat it does to the relationship
ith the client%oner#
- will thin" because procurement is mainly noncore /P0 service, it becomes a bit
diBcult to have a very comprehensive scope. /y this - mean that the scope
continue to add or subtract which ma"es it diBcult for eperienced vendor to
even protest anything.
0n the selection process, vendors who will protest for the hopes of reversing
decisions in their favors under any circumstances must not be business savvy,
because it will only ruin the buyer5seller relationship. +owever, - am sure that a
few desperate vendors may do 'ust that and ris" never being considered for
future contracts.
+hould vendors be aare of the evaluation criteria during the
procurement phase, or after they have submitted their proposals%bids#
As long as the scope is de2ned properly, the vendor need not be concerned with
the evaluation criteria. The customer is not in the business of preparing and
evaluating vendors for the variety of pro'ects that they may encounter. Through
the RFP, the vendor will get a detailed account of what will be as"ed of them and
if they are not capable of performing the re#uired tas"s, then they need not
apply.
Though this sounds harsh, it is 'ust business. There are some vendors that will
use the information from the RFP to contact other vendors that specify in one of
the parts of the pro'ect and subcontract those individuals. Then they will submit
a bid for the entire pro'ect. Thus allowing them to epand in their services and
establishing a win5win situation for both themselves and the customer.
There are some vendors that only wor" for other vendors and not directly with
the customer. They utili(e this method to maintain a certain clientele base and
not have the headaches of dealing with the customer. This can be found in
speciali(ed 2elds where the vendor can focus on this speci2c 2eld and not have
to worry about having to multitas"ing.
"hy do you think some oners do not like to de$ne the
selection%evaluation criteria as part of the re,uest for proposals#
0ne of the main reason, - would thin" is because owners donCt want to be
overwhelmed with incompetent vendors who will tailored their responses in their
favor to suit the evaluation criteria. This prolongs the decision in selecting the
right seller. -t may also isolate new competent sellers9 a disadvantage to the
owner.
$ome owners don&t li"e to de2ne the selection!evaluation criteria as part of the
RFP because they fear that if they do, the vendors will only o.er what is
re#uested and set their price structure for 'ust that. /ut if the criteria are not
speci2cally de2ned, vendors will put together a proposal outlining all of what the
vendor thin"s the company would li"e to see and include it all in one price
structure. This would be bene2cial to the owner. Then the owner could weed out
eactly what it is he or she is not loo"ing for. A broader proposal could allow the
owner to see things he or she did not "now were needed. 1hereas a proposal
that is too DslimD or one that does not contain enough information could help the
owner deselect vendors.
-f the customers are not completely aware of the methodology! technology, eact
s"ills set re#uired, the type of materials etc. to be implemented!applied in the
pro'ect, they may want to "eep the RFP a little vague so that they can epand
on their "nowledge about the pro'ect and loo" at various alternatives suggested
by di.erent vendors responding to the RFP. This is especially tue in case of the
some emerging technology or comple pro'ect.
is it bad to have a vendor developing his%her proposal based on the
evaluation criteria provided in the &'( or &'-#
- would say it is not bad as long as the vendor is truthfully answering the
#uestions or providing the information re#uested. - would loo" at how accurate or
informative the answers in the RFP!RFQ were. The detailed description a vendor
provides in RFP or RFQ gives you a good indication the #uality of its wor". - would
be cautious, though, that vendorCs own criteria may be in its favor and
undermine the customerCs goal or ob'ective.
The evaluation criteria should be included as part of the &'(. .noing
hat the evaluation criteria are helps a vendor%prospective bidder
understands ho his%her proposal ill be evaluated. It also helps guide
the structure, format, and content of the proposal.
'rom the Client/s standpoint, the evaluation criteria help con$rm
his%her ob!ectives for the outsourcing ork, and helps ensure that
prospective bidders are compatible ith the services being re,uested
and capable of satisfying the client/s ob!ectives. It also forces the client
to think about the proposal !udging criteria ahead of time in order to
ensure that the evaluation criteria are as ob!ective as possible.
In addition to the evaluation criteria, the relative eights assigned to
each criterion should be speci$ed (since these in turn are
representative of the priorities of the Client and%or the Client/s ranking
of the evaluation criteria in order of importance). The scoring scale
(e.g. 0-01 points per evaluation factor) should be used.