Request for Proposal Time?

At the end of all the meetings, emails, decks, outlines and drafts lives a comprehensive document that outlines exactly what your chosen vendor MUST deliver. The goal then shifts abruptly to securing a provider capable of delivering on those requirements.

• This tried and true method yields the results you seek time and time again… right?
• Through it you’ve become aligned with providers who understand your needs… haven’t you?
• Because of the last RFP, vendors have become partners… haven’t they?
• This process, the RFP process works well… right?

Wrong

Nothing could be further from the truth. The RFP process is broken, and that break starts at the very start of the process – the part where you tell potential vendors how to solve your problem (SOWs and Requirements) instead of presenting the problem itself and requesting actual solutions – and continues throughout vendor selection.

Here’s Why…

Dysfunction Runs Deep

Illustrative B2B Buying Journey

Bold is indicative of always-on “validation” and “consensus creation” activities.

Each step of the RFP process suffers from inertia and each can be improved with small changes in the way you approach a partnership opportunity.

Understand Who You Should Involve

Clearly define your challenge and your goals in your RFP… it’ll help the provider construct a solution specific to your organization.

Look at it this way. You wouldn’t allow your HVAC person to audit financial statements, would you? Then why is your HR executive involved in the facilities services RFP development process? True, they office in the buildings too. But their understanding of facilities services may be confined to the end result (i.e., a clean HR Training room) versus the solution needed to get that result. Soliciting input from similarly unqualified individuals is a recipe for disaster when it comes to reaching consensus on the RFP’s scope. The remedy is simple. Use a base of stakeholders who understand your facilities challenges and service needs.

The cleaner your request and the more streamlined your response requirements, the more responsive your received bids will be.

Are All Services Frequencies Created Equal?

Understanding service frequencies helps get desired results

One reason it’s so important to have the right people building the facilities services RFP is service frequencies. Understanding these frequencies can reduce your final costs and impact the vendor relationship in several ways.

Service frequencies guide how often a particular service is performed on a particular facility asset such as “carpets vacuumed twice a day.” However, carpeting in a rarely used conference room may not require twice a day attention, whereas carpeting in an entryway may need twice a day treatment to stay clean.

During the crafting of your RFP, take the following into consideration

An early misstep on service frequency expectations can lead the best relationship awry. When it comes to your RFP, be clear in this area. If anything changes, give your provider the chance to adjust. When you take time to do it this way, everybody wins.

Getting to Know Your Facility

A mistake many RFP Committees make is assuming that all facilities are alike. The truth is, they’re different—in some cases, very different. Using an RFP template or relying on information from a consultant may seem convenient, but in the long run, it can prove to be costly. Before writing your RFP, take the time to get to know your own facilities. It could prove to be one of the best investments you’ll ever make.

No two facilities are alike which means no two RFP’s should be alike.

Facilities are different, and no one knows this better than the vendors vying to service them. When it comes to facilities, they’re service experts and understand how to treat every facet of buildings and their infrastructure. But before they can determine your solution, they have to become acquainted with your facilities, your preferences, your target APPA level. This takes place during the walkthrough.

Aside from the compilation of the RFP, the walk-through may be the most important component of your RFP process for several reasons, including:

Learn to respect the walk-through and all it represents. Use it as an opportunity to vet your bidder pool. Listen to the questions the bidders are asking and note how they interact with their competitors on the tour. You’ll gain some insights into their expertise and the level of service they can potentially provide.

The Question & Answer Period

Once the walk-through has been completed, bidders need a question and answer period wherein they can seek clarification of your requirements. as they craft your solution(s).

Giving bidders an adequate amount of time to form their questions is a key. Once the walk-through has been completed, they will return to their offices and present your facility challenges to their teams. That’s when lists of questions will begin to form. Your facilities are complex with many layers of needs – be patient with bidders and provide enough of a window to allow them to process all they’ve seen in the walk-through.

Sharing all bidders’ questions and your answers with all bidders is standard practice. Understand that an answer you provide here can give rise to additional questions. Many organizations have a prolonged question and answer process to accommodate additional queries once initial questions have been answered.

Commodity Versus Value

Most procurement departments attempt to select the lowest cost, most responsive bid. While lowest cost is an easy measurement, “most responsive” is not as easily defined.

From a literal perspective, the most responsive bid could be the company that answers every question and provides every requested attachment, appendix and manual. We believe that “most responsive” should equal a demonstrated understanding of your facilities services challenges and a fact-based and proven methodology to meet those challenges – backed by a measurable set of KPIs.

In every RFP bidder pool, there’s always one proposal that has a price that seems too good to be true. It never fails. That low price bid may look like it’s covering all the bases on the surface, but a closer examination of the staff size, their hourly wage rates, the service frequencies, the initial investment in equipment and chemicals, the availability of dedicated on site management often reveals short cuts taken in favor of profit margin.

You’re hiring great people not comparing commodity products.

Before falling into the low price trap, remember the adage that says you get what you pay for. Be willing to put a price on value and experience. Partner with the provider who demonstrates an understanding of your needs and whose company values match your own. while providing value based services.

Your facilities are more than buildings, they are an investment in your staff and your ongoing success. Don’t short change your organization here – investing in proactive facilities services now will ensure that you make the most of that investment in the future.

Numbers Don’t Lie – Unless They Do

What If…

After it’s all said and done, the bid totals are tallied up, a winning bid is selected and several months later, the chosen vendor is not working out and your RFP and its committee take the blame?

What if the next time your facility services required an RFP you:

• Took the time to involve the right people in the development process, yielding a document that allowed bidders to craft solutions, not just check off requirements.
• Made sure the service frequencies were correct. In addition to letting the bidders develop a more accurate price, it would also help you build a partnership, as opposed to hiring a provider.
• You took your time with walkthroughs and understood that they’re valuable interviews that can provide insight, not just a formality.
• Gave bidders more time to ask questions and gave your staff more time to answer them. The Q&A period is important and rushing it can spell disaster to the final partnership.
• You walked into this RFP with an investor mindset, thinking long-term and in the best interest of your facility.
• Revamp the bid matrix and evaluation process to uncover actionable information you could use to make a decision.

But here’s a better question. What if—you killed the RFP altogether? What if you killed the RFP and never spent another minute building that complicated document and instead, you spend that time building true relationships?

It’s Time for a Relationship

The good news is that Flagship is willing to perform a thorough needs analysis that uncovers hidden areas that have long been ignored due to broken RFP processes. Our needs analysis will point the way to a better solution, staffed with capable professionals who understand how to best service your environment.

Evaluation matrices are extremely important – they seek to remove subjective opinion in favor of objective, qualitative measurement. But, if your matrix hasn’t kept up with your RFP template changes and with the changes in your facilities due to remodeling, expansions, new equipment, you’ll be unable to apply the matrix to your response set to help you identify the winning bidder.

We see all varieties of bid matrices in any given year and we’re accustomed to price being awarded the lion’s share of the weight – often being weighted at > 60% .

While we understand that the motivation to outsource is often price driven, we urge caution when giving too much weight to the pricing component of your RFP. Doing so ignores the very real value adds that an experienced facility service vendor brings to the table with industry specific personnel and training, equipment, chemicals and supplies.