Assess the proposals for your consulting project: a few tips to get it right

Key Takeaways

When you are working on a large cohort of consulting providers, you should focus first on the most promising proposals to save time and energy.

Sometimes consultants look better on paper. Review your selection criteria and offer the short-listed candidates a chance to convince you they are the best for this project.

The list of questions will be the basis for the pitch session with the most promising consultants: an excellent opportunity to clarify the RFP if necessary and assess the fit with your teams.

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to the seventh episode of our podcast: Smart Consulting Sourcing, THE podcast about Consulting Procurement.

My name is Hélène, and I’ll be your host today.

Each week I’ll give you the keys to better use, manage and source consulting services.

In this seventh episode, I’ll explain how to assess the written proposals for your project..

Last week, we saw some sound principles to organize a healthy competition between the potential consulting providers. If you applied them correctly, you should now have some solid proposals on your hands.

So where do you start to analyze and assess the proposals?

Once you have received the proposals, take the time to review them with the other stakeholders.

Always keep your objective in mind: you want to maximize the chances of success of your project. You need the candidates to submit their best proposals, and for that, they need to understand the problem very well.

You have to level the ground, so all companies have a fair chance in the competition. It is in your best interest to do so.

Don’t hesitate to explain in length the background of your company and the context of the assignment, and to take some time to polish the Q&A documents.

What should you look at?

Make sure the candidates have responded to the most important elements in your RFP. Their proposals should help you answer the following questions:

• Has the consultant understood our objectives?
• Do the deliverables answer our questions?
• Do we trust the approach proposed by the consulting provider?
• Does the team have the required experience?
• Is this consultant the right fit for us?
• Does the budget fit the value we expect?

Note if there are any gray areas and potential misunderstandings.

When you are working on a large cohort of consulting providers, you should focus at first on the most promising proposals to save time and energy. You can always go down your list if you are not satisfied with your first batch.

Start ranking your proposals based on a structured assessment. You can use these six dimensions: objectives, deliverables, approach, experience, fit, and budget.

You should also be able to put your finger on the uncertainties in the proposals and articulate them into questions.

The list of questions will be the basis for the pitch session with the most promising consultants: an excellent opportunity to clarify the RFP if necessary and assess the fit with your teams.

Assessing the written proposals is a key step in the process. But it is not enough to make the decision.

Sometimes consultants look better on paper. Now is the time to review your selection criteria, and offer the short-listed candidates a chance to convince you they are the best for this project.

That’s it for today. Next week I will explain how to select the right consulting provider for your project.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, or want to learn more about what we do at consulting quest, just send me an email at helene.laffitte@consultingquest.com

Bye and see you next week! Au revoir!

assess the proposals. assess the proposals. assess the proposals. assess the proposals. assess the proposals. assess the proposals. assess the proposals.

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