Request for Proposal vs. Invitation for Bid

Once the vendor list is eliminated to a select few, an RFP is issued to those vendors. RFP is generally a request is more specific details on the system requirements and provides guidelines for vendors to following bidding. Typically, the RFP includes 1) instructions for vendor bidding, 2) organizational objectives, 3) organizational background and description of the facility including departmental applications and current infrastructure, 4) the type of system and applications being sought along with necessary requirements, 5) vendor qualifications with background information, experience, number of installs, financial reports, and

Pricing strategy: When bidding for the government contracts, the A&D companies have to assess and anticipate how other competitors will respond to the Request for Proposal (RFP), which contains the details of the technical and non-technical requirements. In the lowest price, technically acceptable or LPTA contract, companies bid as lowest price as possible while maintaining the acceptable profit margin threshold for their operations. In order to determine the lowest price point that qualifies a company to win the contract and produces the highest profit as possible at the same time, not only does a company has to know its own profitable price point, it has to also anticipating how low other companies will bid the contract. For example, Company A has been trying to break into cybersecurity space in the past few years. However, it hasn’t been successfully in any of the previous bids. Contract XYZ is a large cybersecurity contract that will allow Company A to start gaining recognition as a prime

Peter Bremner, general manager for Northern Drilling Inc. (Northern) was looking over the RFP for an upcoming exploration contract for one of Canada’s largest mining companies, Mond Nickel Company (Mond). The RFP consisted of 2 projects, a Deep/Complex job (3,000m holes) and an Intermediate/Routine job (1,800m holes). The proposal was due in 3 weeks and Peter had to make a decision whether to send a proposal on either Deep or Intermediate jobs, both jobs, or whether to bid at all.

However, there are other government's standard requirements for solicitation that the attached proposal does not meet. The U.S government has standard solicitation forms that should be used to request for proposal. The U.S government either requests for proposal through Grants.gov or directly from federal government agencies. When the U.S government requests for the proposal from either of the two methods, the government provides series of solicitation forms that firms must fill in order to apply for the

Define selection criteria R/A C/I N/A N/A Obtain a list of approved vendors R/A C/I N/A N/A Call the contractor R/A I N/A N/A Rate and choose the contractor R/A

The United States government is the largest single purchaser of goods and services in the world. Even during times of economic hardship, the US continues to dump billions into the private sector. The federal procurement spending rate of growth has surpassed the rate of U.S. inflation every year, since 2000. With annual federal procurement budgets of more than $400 billion, it is no surprise that the competition for government contracts has increased tremendously. Consequently, more and more companies are trying to get a piece of the action. When these companies adhere to all of the required regulations and statutes, they expect their proposals to be evaluated and the contract awarded in

The Truth in Negotiations Act was passed on December 1, 1962 requiring government contractors to submit cost or pricing data if the procurement met specific requirements in order to establish that the offer is fair and reasonable. The history of The Truth in Negotiations Act will set the stage for its significance in the twenty-first century. Prior to World War II, the United States government conducted its bidding process for procurement in an open bid environment. What was required for a bid was a complete description of the requirement, two or more suppliers capable and willing to complete the requirement, a selection based on price competition and sufficient time to prepare a complete statement of the government’s needs and terms.

Interested parties can view all the bids at this time, although they don't have access to the bidders' financial data and other proprietary information. Then contract is awarded to the company with the lowest bid. The Contracting office will then make sure the lowest bidder has submitted their bids on time and in accordance with the instructions and requirements of the IFB. In addition to making sure they have fulfilled all requirements that were outlined in the IFB they also evaluate the bidder's level of responsibility based on the company's means to fulfill all the contract requirements. Due to the fact this process is very rigorous this process is monitor to ensure sure strict rules are applied and followed.

The FAR lists a number of ways in which exchanges between Government and Industry might occur prior to the issuance of a contract award. Examples of these types of exchanges include, Pre-Solicitation Conferences and Industry Days; Pre-Proposal Conferences; and One-on-One Meetings with Potential Offerors.

Once I have a clear Statement of work and the previous vendors are interested in bidding; I will compete this procurement to the best practices of government procurement are achieves.

The most valuable output of the Plan Procurement Process is the Procurement Management Plan. As is the case with almost every aspect of the project management process, it is essential and imperative that the project management team implement an effective and concise plan when it comes to the various components of procurement throughout the project’s life cycle. Specifically speaking, the procurement management plan refers to the plan that has been put into place that is meant to dictate and describe the entirety of the procurement process and how it is means to relate to and with the developing procurement documentation, and how contract closure will relate to all. The procurement management plan should be implemented and developed as early in the project life cycle as possible to assure that the procurement process is consistent throughout, however, in some cases the plan may be altered once the project begins, particularly if budgetary reasons dictate.

There was no formal bidding process. In addition, it appeared that not all bidders were treated equally. This can be seen when the bidding process was opened back up after the contractors were narrowed down to

Procurement by public entities is guided by primary law principles of transparency, equal treatment and non-discrimination, procurement laws sets up an extensive legal framework regarding the procurement of work, supply and service contracts. There are two main reasons for the use of specific procedures i.e. why contracting authorities do not just negotiate or simply buy from the closest supplier. First, it provides for more public accountability and therefore less cases of corruption practices. Additionally, tendering procedures aim to ensure the best value for money by making it necessary for suppliers to act highly competitive. As a result, market mechanisms will help in facilitating the best possible practices. In situations where market mechanisms are not effective, tender procedures might lose their effectiveness as well. If for example there is lack of competition due to certain complexities or as a result of lower bidder interest, negotiations with just one or two suppliers may be the most efficient manner to handle the process. Therefore, we discuss the inherent advantages and disadvantages of sealed bidding and contracting by negotiation as procedural frameworks for tendering.

Strict adherence to formal procedures characterizes sealed bidding which attempts to provide a “level playing field” or as a multitude of references point out equal footing to all bidders who compete for a contract. Competitive negotiation is a more flexible process that enables the agency to conduct discussions, evaluate offers, and award the contract using price and other factors. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), whose origins can be traced back to the ASPA of 1947 was codified at Title 48 of the Code of Federal Regulations and became effective 1 April 1984. The FAR contains the uniform policies and procedures for acquisitions by all federal agencies to date. It addresses nearly every procurement related statute or executive policy; and subsequently encompasses every stage of the acquisition process. In a nutshell, FAR appears to have modernized and thus enveloped the aforementioned three acts.

The following sample Request for Proposal (RFP) was provided by NPower Seattle. Please note that the project described here is for example only and should not be reused verbatim. For more information on how to build an effect RFP, please see TechSoup's RFP Library at: http://www.techsoup.org/emcf/rfp Copyright 2003 NPower Seattle. All rights reserved.