Month: October 2019

Bonfire is now available for purchase on the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR), enabling public agencies to directly procure Bonfire’s sourcing and contract management solution at preferred pricing. 

Over 250 public procurement teams already use the Bonfire platform to manage their bid and RFP process online, unlocking greater efficiency, reduced risk, and increased vendor competition. Now it’s even easier for Texas DIR customers to implement Bonfire and bring these benefits to your organization. 

Through Bonfire’s Cooperative Contract with the DIR, your team can: 

• Save money, by leveraging volume buying power to access discounted pricing
• Save time, by avoiding the lengthy RFx process and using the DIR’s competitively-bid contract
• Make a confident decision, with a well-vetted contract that is guaranteed to comply with state purchasing requirements.

“Through the DIR Cooperative Contract, we’ll be able to extend the availability of our procurement solutions to other state and civic agencies with immediate access and cost savings,” said Corry Flatt, CEO and Founder of Bonfire.

Learn more about the benefits of procurement digitization 

For Region 10 Education Service Centre, digitizing the procurement process on Bonfire has meant less time spent scanning and photocopying, reduced risk of human error from manual steps, and the ability to involve more evaluators in their decisions. 

The second instalment of our three-part blog series on the 2019 State of the RFP. 

It goes without saying that being disqualified from the RFP process is a bad outcome for vendors. After investing the time and money to prepare a response, it is discouraging to find out that you were not even considered for the RFP award. 

However, it’s not all on vendors! Disqualifications are also costly to buying organizations. Given that each additional vendor involved in an RFP increases the price spread between vendors by 3%, each disqualification represents a missed opportunity for savings.  

To better understand vendor disqualifications and how to avoid them, we looked at the data from over 6,000 public sector RFPs conducted through the Bonfire Strategic Sourcing platform. 

How often are vendor proposals disqualified? 

First, the good news: vendor disqualifications are on the decline. 

In 2014, nearly 15% of vendor submissions were disqualified. This number is down to 4% in 2018—a significant improvement. 

Why are vendor proposals disqualified? 

While greatly improved, a 4% disqualification rate is still troubling. To understand how to cut down on disqualifications—and make sure you’re receiving more qualified, complete vendor responses, let’s take a closer look at disqualification reasons: 

Many of these reasons may be outside the sphere of influence of the buying organization.  After all, sometimes vendors are simply unqualified or careless in their submissions. 

However, procurement teams should strive to improve the areas within their control which impact disqualifications: namely, by making the bid and RFP submission process as straightforward and error-proof as possible. 

Three keys to an error-proof vendor submission process 

Get the right vendors involved. 

Want fewer unqualified vendors? Instead, focus on getting your opportunities in front of more of the right vendors. This often means casting a wider net than your local newspaper or business bureau. 

By posting solicitations online, you make your opportunities discoverable to a global vendor pool, increasing the likelihood of relevant vendors finding your opportunities. You can also proactively invite vendors by commodity code, further expanding your solicitation’s reach. 

Eliminate incomplete submissions with structured online submission. 

Fewer and fewer projects are being disqualified due to missing documents (from 30% in 2014 to 13% in 2018). Increased digitization of the RFP submission process is a likely factor. An online submission process allows procurement teams to reduce the opportunity for human error on the part of vendors. 

Here’s how: 

• Checklist-style submission process provides a clear explanation of required documents 
• Structured document slots ensure that you cannot submit your proposal until all documents are uploaded. 
• Custom fields ensure you get only the data/documents you need (and none of the extra stuff!) 

By bringing the bid and RFP submission process online, you can eliminate incomplete submissions, saving countless hours of your time and ensuring that simple errors in the submission process aren’t causing any vendors to be taken out of the running.  

Ensure vendors never miss an addenda or clarification. 

The solicitation process is often iterative; new information might necessitate addenda or clarifications to be added to the solicitation, and Q&A periods might result in further information to help vendors prepare an accurate proposal. 

However, when managing an offline submission process, it’s very difficult to ensure that all interested vendors have received all the relevant information before making their submission. A missing addenda could easily cause inaccuracies or missing pieces in the final submission. 

Online submission platforms take away the guesswork for you and your vendors, by: 

• Providing all solicitation information, including addenda and Q&A in one, easily accessible online platform
• Automatically notifying vendors of any new documents or information added to the solicitation
• Reminding vendors of the upcoming submission deadline  

At the end of the day, these strategies will never result in the complete eradication of vendor disqualifications. After all, there’s always going to be vendors who choose to submit to projects far outside their capabilities, despite your best efforts. 

Nevertheless, every procurement professional can take steps to remove process-related pitfalls and obstacles standing in the way of successful vendor submissions—ultimately, leading to better options and better value for your organization.

Looking for more data-driven answers to the questions that keep public procurement teams up at night? 

Register for the 2019 State of the RFP webinar. 

By digitizing the bid and RFP process online with Bonfire, procurement teams gain efficiency and visibility into their procurement activities—but that’s not the end of the story! 

Procurement teams need to stay engaged with their procurement decisions after the contract is awarded, in order to: 

• Stay on top of key milestones and changes in active spend
• Monitor vendor performance 
• Plan future procurement activities 

Bonfire’s Contract and Performance Management module picks up where the bid and RFP process ends, allowing procurement teams to connect their sourcing event to the resulting contract and manage associated documents, agreements, and deadlines in the same centralized place. 

In our first instalment of the Bonfire Fall Webinar Series for Clients, we covered four ways that Bonfire’s Contract and Performance Management module makes it easy for teams to close the loop on their bid and RFP decisions. 

Watch the full webinar recording, or read a quick synopsis below.

1. View contract information and pull contract reports 

From the Bonfire Contract Management module, you can:  

• View contract information at-a-glance on a central dashboard
• Filter contracts to locate the information you need (e.g. filter by start date, contract value, commodity code, or custom fields you have pre-determined)
• Export custom reports to Excel

You also have the option to post contracts publicly on the Bonfire portal, with the ability to pick and choose what contract information is shared publicly. 

From the central repository, you can click into an individual contract record to see further details, including: 

• A visual timeline of the contract terms, including lead time, start date, and end date  
• Custom reminders to notify you of important milestones in the contract 
• Vendor documentation, including whether it is up-to-date or expired 
• The current vendor performance score, as determined by vendor performance surveys
• Contract details, term and change orders, and spend against contract 
• Vendor contact information 
• Contract documentation 

An example of a contract record in Bonfire.

Reporting is easy with all the information in one place and easily exportable. You can also give other users in your organization access to contract details (to view or edit), so all contract stakeholders are on the same page. 

2. Create templates for recurring contract agreements 

To save time on the set-up of recurring contracts, you can create templates which are pre-configured to include the default details, documents, and people for a given contract type. 

Setting up a project template in Bonfire.

Every time you create a new contract using this template, all the preconfigured information is there—saving time and ensuring consistency. 

3. Generate contracts from awarded proposals 

With the Contract and Performance Management module, you can instantly create a  contract record from a completed sourcing project in Bonfire. 

This streamlines contract creation by automatically carrying over relevant information from the sourcing project into the Contract Record, including: 

• Public files from the original sourcing project (e.g. the IFB and Addenda)
• The awarded vendor’s submission documents 

Setting up a new contract record from a completed sourcing project. 

From there, you can add the contractual agreement itself, include additional users from your organization who should be associated with the project, and add vendor contact information. 

It’s a simple and straightforward way to ensure continuity in your procurement activities. 

4. Manage Vendor Performance

The Contract and Performance Module also allows you to track vendor performance.

You can: 

• Configure surveys to measure vendor performance 
• Add respondents that will receive the survey 
• View survey results and frequency 
• Export survey results
• View trends from past surveys to see if there is improvement

An example of how survey results are displayed in a contract record.

Ongoing feedback on vendor performance is displayed in an intuitive format in the contract record. This is valuable information to help you forecast future procurement needs and bandwidth. 

For example, for vendors who are performing below your organization’s performance threshold, you can anticipate that you will likely be going back out to the market for that contract when it’s up for renewal. For vendors who are performing well and whose contact includes the option to renew, you can plan on renewing. 

With at-a-glance insight into vendors at risk, you can ensure that contracts with poor performance don’t slip through the cracks at renewal times—saving time and frustration for you and your end users.

Ready to learn more? See Bonfire’s Contract and Performance Module for yourself in a live demo. 

The first instalment of our three-part blog series on the 2019 State of the RFP. 

One of the biggest gripes about the public procurement process is that it takes too long. RFPs have a reputation for dragging on, which can cause problems for end users in delayed projects or lost budget. 

Internal departments want to get procurements done faster, so they can get on with their work. On the other hand, procurement teams want to be involved in the process earlier, so they can make sure all the boxes are checked without the last-minute crunch time. 

Both sides can agree on one thing: nobody wants the RFP process to take forever. 

How long do RFPs actually take, and what can public procurement teams do about it? To answer that, we investigated the data from over 6,000 public sector RFPs conducted through the Bonfire Strategic Sourcing platform.

How long is the average public sector RFP cycle time? 

We found that the average public sector RFP process took 57 days from posting to award. This does not include the additional time spent on pre-planning and requirements-gathering before the RFP is posted.  

Key Takeaways 

• The vast majority (78%) of RFP projects conducted through the Bonfire platform are wrapped up within 1- 2 months 
• Only 6% of RFP projects take over 4 months
• Only 3% of RFPs take over 6 months 

Taking a closer look, we can see that there is some variation between different types of public sector organizations: 

Key Takeaways: 

• Healthcare organizations have the longest RFP process at nearly 80 days on average
• K12 schools and higher education institutions had the shortest RFP process, at 51 days on average

Digitization yields time-savings 

With increasing pressure to get RFPs out the door, procurement teams are often racing against the clock as their default mode. This approach just isn’t sustainable: it introduces errors and risk for your organization, not to mention burnout and frustration for your staff. 

For many teams, digitization offers a solution. By bringing the RFP process online, teams can cut down on manual work and save time through process efficiencies—ultimately cutting RFP cycle times in half. 

Here’s a breakdown of common activities in the RFP process that can be streamlined by using an online platform to manage the RFP process:

An added benefit of digitization is clear visibility into the procurement process—including metrics such as RFP cycle times. Knowing where you stand, how long your RFPs take, and the impact you’re having helps with resource planning while also fuelling continuous improvement in your procurement function. 

Shorter RFP cycle times, better stakeholder relationships 

For public procurement to work, procurement teams and their internal departments need to get on the same page. This means that procurement teams must find a way to provide faster, more efficient service to their stakeholders, shedding procurement’s slow reputation once and for all. 

Whether your RFP process clocks in around the benchmark of 57 days or not, it’s worth investigating how long your RFPs take and where there are opportunities to shorten cycle times and create a win-win for your organization. 

Attend the State of the RFP webinar for more RFP benchmarks from public sector organizations. 

Procurement has often gotten a bad rap as solely a cost-control or compliance function. However, the team at Service New Brunswick (SNB) proves that procurement can have a meaningful impact beyond the bottom line. The crown corporation, which provides direct public services for the New Brunswick government, is leading the field in implementing value-based procurement, with big benefits for government and citizens.

Value-based procurement refers to a procurement approach which prioritizes overall value over cost. It is becoming the new standard in healthcare procurement, supporting the attainment of better health outcomes—and signalling a departure from healthcare’s sometimes-stringent focus on cost reduction. 

“We’re starting to have more conversations about value-based procurement, whereby the results are based on outcomes,” says Renée Laforest, vice president of SNB’s Finance and Strategic Procurement Division, speaking to Supply Chain Digital. “For example, when we purchase insulin pumps for diabetes clients, we’ll carefully look at the needs of our clients and ensure we meet their demands rather than automatically opting for the cheapest pump.” 

This approach is representative of a wider shift towards best value procurement across the public sector. The Governing Institute’s 2019 State Procurement report found that all but one of 28 states surveyed rank best value above lowest price. Data from over 200 public sector organizations on the Bonfire platform echoes the finding: the 2018 State of the RFP report found that the lowest-priced proposal won in only 10% of all RFPs, down from 16% from 2016. 

Collaboration = a prerequisite to value-based procurement 

Implementing a value-based procurement approach is not just a matter of changing the wording on an RFP. It requires greater coordination and collaboration with stakeholders right from the start. 

“We really consider our clients’ needs and requirements when procuring goods and services for them,“ notes Laforest. “It’s important that we have these in-depth conversations, particularly when it comes to services. If you’re buying a service you may have more complex needs and requirements, so this dialogue is critical.” 

Gone are the days of procurement professionals working in isolation from end users. In a value-based procurement model, it’s crucial to include end-users in the decision-making to better understand usability and the desired outcomes of the product or service. 

Less paperwork enables greater value-add 

The traditional procurement process, with its heavy reliance on paper and Excel, would be prohibitive to the type of collaboration required by value-based procurement. That’s why many teams leverage sourcing technology to automate the administration of the RFP process, thereby freeing procurement staff to focus on facilitating close collaboration in the decision-making process. 

Cloud-based eSourcing platforms also provides the advantage of one online location for stakeholders to come together to collaborate on the RFP evaluation. Service New Brunswick uses Bonfire Strategic Sourcing Platform to manage their RFP process. 

“Vendors use it to submit their proposals, and we do all our evaluations within the tool. It’s all automated, and all our stakeholders have found it beneficial,” says Laforest. 

RELATED: How sourcing software makes it easier to manage best value procurement

Procurement ascends as a strategic partner

The SNB procurement team’s success proves that procurement teams can be a crucial partner in accomplishing their organization’s goals. Leveraging procurement technology in intelligent ways helps teams break out of the cycle of rushing requisitions out the door, giving them the capacity and visibility to work strategically. 

Ultimately, this helps procurement shed the historic reputation as a penny-pincher and rule-enforcer, and instead become a partner in delivering outcomes. 

As Laforest puts it, “I want to really add value for our clients so that they don’t see procurement as a roadblock but rather see it as a value-adding function.”

For more on how procurement technology helps teams grow their strategic impact, read the GovTech Guide Understanding Procurement Technology and How to Use It.