How to Evaluate a Request for a Proposal

A request for a proposal is a request for detailed information so capabilities can be evaluated and the best supplier can be chosen. To evaluate a proposal you must look for three major components: compliance with requirements, the technical merits of the solution and price. Once you have evaluated these and other components, you will need to compare the proposals to determine which provides you the best value and the most effective solution.

• 1

  Examine the RFPs to see if they all comply with the requirements. For example, one requirement might have been that the RFP be no longer than 70 pages. If any of the RFPs are not fully compliant you can decide whether to discard them from the remainder of the evaluation process.

• 2
  Check each answer against the evaluation criteria. Kreuz 1 2 image by Michael S. Schwarzer from Fotolia.com

  Examine the evaluation criteria and check each technical criterion against each supplier's response. If weighting applies, score accordingly. Weighting involves giving a designated value to different components of the proposal. For example, pricing might be weighted at 30 percent whereas information security policies might be weighted at 5 percent. Then each question within these components is assigned a numerical value depending on how well they have been answered.

• 3

  Examine the pricing and score it. The pricing usually has the highest weighting attributed to it. There are several ways you can evaluate price: the overall price submitted, price plus the cost of implementing the solution, and price plus the cost of the risk associated with implementation.

• 4

  Compare the scores for all the RFPs and determine which has scored the highest.