“If I help you, Clarice, it will be turns with us too. Quid pro quo. I tell you things, you tell me things… Quid pro quo. Yes or no?”
Taken in the very confined context of this scene from “Silence of the Lambs,” the relationship between a serial killer and a fledgling FBI agent strikes me as less dysfunctional and more productive, more honest, than many vendor-client engagements during the RFP stage. Here, Doctor Lecter represents the vendor. You, the offeror, play Agent Starling. See, this is your case, tasked to you by superiors in the agency. They recognize your potential to evolve and succeed, to climb their ladder. And you hold most of the cards here; it’s your case to lose. You also have resources and freedom -- something Lecter does not. But the doctor does have something you really need: expertise, insight, the ability to guide you down the winning path. It’s his only trump card.
If you’re not willing to be honest with him and share, he has no reason to reciprocate. He’s not going anywhere. The urgency is not his. If Agent Starling walks away, she stands to lose more than Doctor Lecter’s attention.
Your RFP was issued to address a pressing business need. Those pain points torment you, not the vendor -- just as Clarice Starling’s imperative to locate and capture a dangerous predator have little bearing on Hannibal Lecter. He will respond only because he believes he can improve his own situation by helping her. But she possesses scant leverage with which to influence him, other than to make a case for mutual cooperation that’s compelling enough to gain his participation and invest in her cause. And in order to help, Doctor Lecter has simply asked her to share information. Your interaction with vendors at this point is really no different. When bidders open your RFP, they must understand the background and the mutual benefits immediately.
It is here, in the preamble or executive summary of your RFP, where you make or break the deal with the Lecters out there. The only way to achieve your end goal is through transparency, reciprocity, and sharing program data, uncomfortable though that may be. This can’t be unilateral. The exchange must be quid pro quo. Otherwise, the rest of your RFP is meaningless.
When you issue your request, make sure to include all relevant program details in your synopsis to bidders. As previously discussed, you should have received executed NDAs back from the vendors you invited to participate. So no worries, right?
Here’s why disclosure and transparency matter: vendors cannot create account team structures, staffing plans, implementation schedules, solution designs, and competitive (or even ballpark) pricing without knowing your spend, volumes, locations, worker categories, and so on. If you withhold this information, you prevent proposal teams from doing their jobs. The bids you’ll receive back will be hundreds of pages of guesses. You will be disappointed. Your superiors will be disappointed. Vendors will quickly lose interest in your organization.
Also understand that the more forthcoming you can be with crucial details, the fewer vendor questions you’ll have to answer. You just spent weeks writing an RFP. Do you really want to pull another late night responding to requests for clarification? To avoid this nightmare, be sure to summarize, at minimum, the following details. Make them prominent. Include them in the first pages of the document. It’s not so much a matter of whetting appetites as it is giving vendors a reason to engage.
- Total program spend
- Spend by job category
- Job categories you need filled, even if they’re not covered in your existing program
- Spend and worker volume by location
- All locations truly in scope for the program -- not what you think might be covered in some indeterminate future or are adding to entice participation
- Outlying spend (in scope, nobody wants to bother with business they can’t touch): SOW/project-based contractors, non-billed workers, independent contractors/freelancer, et al.
- The number of suppliers currently providing services and the number needed (i.e., augmentation or rationalization)
- Whether or not you have incumbents, especially those who shall remain engaged
- Your real pain points, the actual drivers of this request
- The decision makers and executive sponsors for the program
- Specific legal, regulatory, or compliance considerations a successful vendor must meet
- The projected start date for implementation
- What kind of program you want and need: Master Vendor, MSP, Vendor Neutral, Hybrid, etc.
- Whether third-party tools will be used or have been previously chosen
- Integration or interface requirements are needed between those tools and your existing systems
- Communication protocols during the RFP process: who to contact, deadlines for questions, a date at which point the process “goes silent,” etc.
2014. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
