In the final episode in the Fall Webinar Series for Clients, we reviewed the findings of the 2019 State of the RFP, an annual benchmarking study of the public sector RFP process.

Using data from over 6,000 public sector RFPs with a combined spend of $1.4 billion, this report gives us a glimpse into how a typical RFP process unfolds.

Read on for a quick summary, or download the full State of the RFP report here.

How long is the average RFP?

The average public sector RFP is 116 pages. This varies somewhat by organization type.

The average RFP for a K12 school district is significantly longer. At 150 pages, it’s over twice as long as the average RFP for a higher education institution.

The RFP process adds up to a lot of paper: around 8,000 pages a year for the average public sector organization.

How is the average RFP set up?

Public sector RFPs on average ask for five distinct pieces of data/documentation from vendors. This might include forms, examples of past work, certifications, references, pricing information, or other documents.

Proposals are typically evaluated on eight criteria.

The average RFP evaluation is divided into two to three different evaluation stages. The purpose of these stages is to manage the complexity of the evaluation, by dividing different types of proposal content up for individual review.

The most common structure of evaluation stages is: 

• Mandatory stage, consisting of pass/fail criteria, evaluated by the procurement team
• Technical information, evaluated by internal Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
• Pricing information, evaluated separately by procurement, finance, or internal SMEs

Advantages to using evaluation stages include the ability to:

• Allow unique groups of evaluators to review only the proposal content that is relevant to their expertise, saving time  
• Avoid bias by evaluating pricing after the rest of the proposal review
• Improve confidentiality and control over the evaluation process

What’s the outcome of the average RFP?

The average winning RFP score is 87.9%—meaning that the winning proposal met nearly 90% of the organization’s criteria.

Furthermore, the average public sector RFP saves 22%. This is calculated as the difference between the winning vendor’s price and the average proposal price for that RFP.

Nobody would claim that the RFP process is perfect—there is always room to improve and evolve the process to meet today’s challenges of fast-changing markets and increasing demand.

However, this is a positive outcome! This study demonstrates that the RFP process is an effective method for organizations to get the goods and services they need at a good price, while following a fair and transparent process.

For more insight into the public sector RFP process, download the full State of the RFP report here. 

The third instalment of our series on the 2019 State of the RFP. 

No procurement team is an island; in fact, procurement teams act more like bridges between their organizations’ internal departments and external vendors, helping both parties accomplish their goals.

New research from the 2019 State of the RFP underscores the collaborative nature of the job. Using first-party data from the Bonfire Strategic Sourcing platform, the study finds that for every buyer in an organization, there are 12 evaluators and 23 vendors on average.

The relationship between procurement teams and their evaluators is paramount to the success of your procurement decisions. Use these insights from the State of the RFP to work better together with evaluators, for a smoother RFP evaluation process and better outcomes.

Right-size your RFP evaluation group

The number of evaluators involved in an RFP depends on the scope of the project. However, the average RFP project includes three to four evaluators. This is consistent with the best practice of including a minimum of three evaluators.

Healthcare organizations include the highest number of evaluators per project, with five evaluators, while K12 school districts include the fewest, with two to three on average.

Cut down on evaluator workload with evaluation groups

Evaluation groups allow you to segment proposal information into different groups. For example, separate Pricing for you to review on the procurement team, Technical Requirements to be reviewed by IT, and Experience or History of Past Work to be reviewed by the end user team.

Structuring the evaluation this way has a few key benefits:

• Faster evaluations. With fewer documents to review, evaluators can finish their piece more quickly.
• Informed scoring. Evaluators are asked to score only the components that they know the most about—resulting in a more informed, educated decision. 
• Less risk. With proposal documents segmented, procurement can control the process more, reducing the risk of bias and interference.

The average RFP evaluation includes two to three evaluation groups—but 5% include more than five!

Ensure everyone’s voice is heard through consensus analysis

Thirty-seven percent of evaluator scores lacked consensus (defined in the study as a <30% difference between any two evaluators’ scores for a given criterion). A further 45% had a ‘soft consensus’ (a difference of 10 – 30% in any two evaluators’ scores for a given criterion).

Evaluator disagreement is not a bad thing, but such high levels indicate a disconnect. Rather than adding scores up and calling it a day, procurement teams should be conducting some form of consensus analysis to identify and resolve significant outlier scores to ensure decisions are made for the right reason—and can be defended.

Procurement teams are not making the final call on a vendor, but they do have an important role to play in moderating the evaluation to:

• Ensure each evaluator’s opinion is heard and recorded
• Resolve major scoring discrepancies due to misunderstanding or missing information
• Reduce subjectivity and bias

Provide a seamless online scoring experience

With each vendor proposal coming in at 116 pages on average, the typical RFP evaluation process involves the review of nearly 500 pages of vendor documentation within an average evaluation period of 31 days.

When you’re managing the RFP evaluation on paper, that means physically carting binders and boxes of paper to evaluators’ offices. Even if you’re sending proposal information by email, that’s a lot of copying and pasting of scores, and sending of attachments—and subsequently a lot of opportunity for error.

An online platform for evaluators to log in, review documents, and score proposals in one place is the single biggest investment you can make into better evaluator relationships. It allows evaluators to provide their input without the administrative hassle.

With these tips, you can ensure that the experience of serving on an evaluation committee is not one to be dreaded or avoided, but rather a refreshingly pleasant and productive experience.

For more RFP benchmarks to improve your procurement function, download the 2019 State of the RFP Report.

Legislation passed this fall makes it possible for local government and school districts in New Jersey to use electronic procurement technology in their procurement activities. 

Read on for a quick primer on Assembly Bill 3112, and what it means for your procurement team! 

The Basics of A-3112

Who is impacted: New Jersey organizations subject to “Local Public Contracts Law” and “Public School Contracts Law.” This does not impact those subject to “State College Contracts Law.” 

What changes: Procurement teams are now authorized to use electronic procurement technologies for the procurement of goods, services, public works construction, and sale of surplus personal and real property. 

Procurement teams must continue to advertise projects in their local newspapers, but can also post and receive vendor submissions online. 

Why: eProcurement technology makes it easier to carry out the procurement process while maintaining the integrity of the process and decreasing the risk of litigation. The assembly’s analysis found that while there is an upfront cost to implementing eProcurement, in the long run local costs are predicted to decrease as a result. 

Three key benefits of eProcurement

Using eProcurement technology to post bid and RFP opportunities online and receive submissions has many benefits. 

Efficiency

Bringing the procurement process online frees up your procurement team from routine administrative tasks such as: 

• Receiving and checking paper submissions
• Scanning in documents
• Creating Excel scorecards and copying-and-pasting scores

The process is easier for vendors, too, giving them one online location to view all project information (including any addenda or Q&A responses), then make their submission online at their convenience.

With less paperwork, procurement teams are able to run bid and RFP projects up to twice as fast. 

Consistency and standardization 

Centralizing the bid and RFP process brings all of your organization’s bids and RFPs into one central location. This makes it easy to see where you’re at, including the progress of all active projects, and what’s coming up next. 

You can also create bid and RFP templates to enforce a standard project set-up across all buyers, ensuring that all the compliance boxes are checked. 

Easy reporting

By managing the bid and RFP process online, you immediately eliminate the challenges of data storage and accessibility that comes along with paper files. All vendor records, proposal information, and scoring summaries are captured in one online platform. It’s easy to customize and export reports at the click of a button. 

Many public organizations operate in a partially or completely decentralized procurement model. This means that while the procurement team handles the majority of bids and RFPs, some departments or divisions (commonly Facilities or Public Works) run their own separate procurement process. 

All too often, this results in a situation where the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, leading to organizational risk and missed opportunities. Many teams are looking to centralize procurement spend under one umbrella to gain better visibility into the big picture.

In the second instalment of the Bonfire Fall Webinar Series for Clients, we demonstrate how Bonfire makes it easier to centralize procurement across the organization to realize the benefits of visibility and consistency. 

Watch the full recording, or read on for a brief summary.

Managing multiple departments in Bonfire 

Procurement teams can establish different Departments within the Bonfire platform. This allows teams to centralize all of their organization’s procurement activities in one place, while preserving a measure of separation between different buying departments.  

You can: 

• Separate and report on procurement activities by department 
• Limit user access between departments 
• Conduct granular reporting by department 
• Search projects or contracts by department 

Here are three key benefits of managing the procurement activities of multiple departments in one place: 

1. Easy reporting 

Bonfire makes it easy to view and report on procurement activities across the organization. 

With all projects occurring through the Bonfire platform, organizations ensure complete and consistent audit reports for each individual project, as well as consistent data and file storage. 

Side-by-side comparison of different departments’ cycle times. 

Not only that, leaders can access Project Insights which provide department-specific metrics on: 

• • RFP cycle length
  • Number of proposals 
  • Savings generated

This can be used for quick and easy reporting, as well as to inform future process improvements or bottlenecks that need to be resolved. 

2. Process consistency and compliance

When procurement is decentralized, it’s virtually impossible to ensure that all teams are following the correct process, adhering to procurement policy, and using up-to-date files. 

This results in greater exposure to risk, as well as a confusing experience for vendors who might bid on multiple opportunities with different departments. 

When procurement is centralized in Bonfire, teams can use Project Templates to enforce consistency in project set-up, minimize errors, and ensure compliance checks and balances are in place. These standardized templates have the added bonus of helping new employees get up and running quickly. 

Examples of Project Templates in Bonfire. 

Procurement users in all departments can use templates every time they create a new project, ensuring their project is pre-set with: 

• Consistent language in project descriptions 
• Standard public files
• Standard internal files (for example, a go-live checklist or manual) 
• Fields for requested forms or documents that are required for each project 

Any updates made by the procurement team can be universally applied, taking away the guessing game of having multiple versions floating around the organization. 

3. Effective vendor management 

There’s nothing worse than realizing that a poorly-performing vendor has just been contracted to work with your organization again by a different department. 

When your vendor management is centralized across the organization, this doesn’t happen. You can maintain one vendor record across the organization, giving other teams full context into existing or past contracts and vendor performance. 

An example of a vendor record in Bonfire. 

Teams can also set up common vendor lists, saving time and providing efficiencies when running similar projects. 

Schedule a live demo to see how Bonfire could work for your procurement organization.