After being invited to talk with the procurement teams of some of the largest companies in the UK about risk and ethics in our industry the conversation quickly turned to RFPs and how to do them well.
As one of the biggest same day couriers in UK, Gophr gets invited to lots of RFPs.
While different companies have different objectives, here are a few key things we have seen in the best ones.
- Being Specific: Whether it is getting everyone to propose pricing in the same format, or being clear what is optional vs compulsory for vendors. A good example is pricing by distance, are you asking for driven distance or haversine (which is a fancy way of saying as the crow flies).
If you are specific you have a better chance of getting something that meets your requirements, without unexpected surprises late in the day.
- Legal Risk: There are legal grey areas and if you are not clear on where your company draws the line you risk encouraging vendors to take risks to cut costs. No-one wants their name in the headline for the wrong reasons! There are some real risks around minimum wage and subcontracting at the moment that can trip you up. Particularly in the same-day / worker status courier space.
Do your vendors take waiting time, and holiday pay into account when calculating courier fees? If not, tread carefully.
- Financial Sustainability: Not [just] the environment. A vendor should be able to make money working with you (just not too much).
If they cannot then they are either: not going to be around for long (not good news for you), or they are trying to drive the competition out of the market before hiking prices (you know who you are). It’s far better to have a partner who will be with you for the long haul as you grow your business.
The good news is all of the above is easy to fix, and more and more procurement teams are building these points into their RFPs.
If you want to find out more about these and go into the detail, get i touch with our team – partnerships@gophr.com
