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In a previous article, we’ve covered how to do RFP scoring.
Evaluating each supplier proposal in a Request for Proposal (RFP) is not easy - you need to decide on the required criteria, prioritize it, and then assess whether suppliers are fulfilling your requirements fully, partially, or not at all.
The overall evaluating process should take into account:
The number of proposals to be scored;
The length and complexity of the proposals and contracts involved;
The number of scorable elements associated with the RFP;
The comparability of the items submitted in each proposal.
There’s a trade-off between keeping your scoring as simple as possible and obtaining all relevant information for making the best decision.
At the same time, you also need to be transparent with your suppliers and let them know what you expect to receive from them, what they need to do to win your sourcing event, and how they compare to the other organizations. This is especially important for the suppliers you rejected.
All this takes a lot of time and effort if done manually. Not to mention that it might not be the most accurate way of selecting the best supplier.
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How automated RFP scoring streamlines the supplier selection process
Today, automation is an omnipresent part of business no matter what department we consider, and the procurement department is no different. RFP automation is a must for any organization that wants to increase performance.
Using RFP scoring software saves you time and effort. Traditionally, procurement professionals spend a lot of time manually composing requests, going through RFP templates, and comparing suppliers and calculating response scores. By reducing the time needed to do all this, you increase the number of RFPs you can process yearly, thus increasing your revenue.
The software also makes it easier to eliminate suppliers who don’t fulfill your requirements from the very beginning and ensure transparency.
Not to mention, you eliminate guesswork. Once you enter the parameters and weights of different data fields in the RFP, the software can rate each supplier and sort them based on their overall scores. If specific requirements are important to you, you can sort suppliers using that requirement as a filter and only select the companies that are the best fit for you.
After selecting the winner of your sourcing event, RFP software can also help you move on with the process and retain all information for future comparison. And all this with just a few clicks.
How to automate your RFP scoring with Prokuria
Autoscoring allows you to set specific scoring values in your custom question drop-down menus so that when suppliers select a certain option, a default score will be applied. Here’s how it works in Prokuria:
Step 1: Go to your Events Dashboard in Prokuria and click on the Create event button in the top-right corner. The event type should be Request so you can add questions for your suppliers and score them dispensing on how important each requirement is to you.
Step 2: Open your newly created event and fill in your details:
Event name;
Short description (so your suppliers know what you expect to accomplish/receive);
Budget (and currency);
End date;
Here, you also have the option to specify whether your request is a sealed bid (meaning that no supplier will know how much the others have bid), or an RFI (typically, Requests for Information are sent before RFPs to help narrow the pool of suppliers).
Step 3: In the Suppliers section, add the email addresses of the suppliers you want to invite to your event.
Step 4: In the Documents section, add any other documents, pictures, or resources that you find useful.
Step 5: If necessary, in the Items section, you can list the products/services you’re asking a quotation for.
Step 6: Finally, in the Questions section, you can add questions/requests for your suppliers, and assign them a score depending on how important they are to you. To add a new question, click on the Add new question button at the bottom of the list, and to score it, use the Scoring button on the right.
In Prokuria, you can choose between three types of questions: free text (suppliers can input their own answer), single choice (suppliers can only select one predefined answer), and multiple-choice (suppliers can choose several predefined answers).
Step 7: After you add your questions, you can go to the Scoring Dashboard and start building your automated scoring sheet. In the Max Points column, add the maximum number of points suppliers can get if they can meet each specific request. The Weights column is showing you how much each question is worth in calculating the overall score of a supplier.
Splitting the questions into different categories will also help you to better understand how important each criterion is in your selection of the best offer. Prokuria automated Scoring Dashboard will calculate the total points for each category of questions.
Once you have the full picture, Prokuria automatically calculates the highest score a supplier can achieve, as well as the percentage of the total score a request is worth.
Step 8: Now you’re ready to launch your event. Prokuria will automatically score your suppliers’ answers to single and multiple-choice questions; for free text questions, you’ll have to input the score manually.
Step 9: Besides your questions, you can add other parameters to your RFP as well (like price or past experience, for example). This is especially helpful if you want to give bonus points to suppliers you’ve worked with previously, or suppliers that have been in the industry for a long time.
Step 10: Once you have a final score for each of the suppliers you’ve invited to your event, it’s time to choose the winner (usually the supplier with the highest rating). If two or more suppliers have the same final score, you might need to ask further questions to differentiate between them. Or you can go for a second round with the main scope being obtaining a better price, which can be a Reverse Auction.
This is it! That’s how simple RFP scoring is in Prokuria - you no longer need to waste time and effort with complicated excels.