Procurement assistance typically involves LRWL participation in the following activities:

• Develop Evaluation Methodology - Prepare a formal, written methodology to be followed in evaluating bidders' proposals. This typically includes:
  
  • Draft the evaluation methodology, defining each step in the process.
    Work with the client to create an effective evaluation committee including key client users and managers, to assure staff "buy-in" to the process.
• Define the selection criteria and weight them appropriately.
• Devise a scoring scheme by which evaluators will assign objective numerical scores to each bidder on each criterion.
• Develop an Excel spreadsheet for entering the evaluators' scores and automatically computing overall, weighted scores and bidder rankings.
  
• Conduct Pre-proposal Bidders Conference - Schedule a mandatory bidders conference (mandatory in the sense that any firm wishing to submit a bid must be in attendance) at which the procurement can be discussed and bidder questions can be answered.
  
• Prepare Answers to Bidder Questions - Prepare formal, written answers to all questions received from bidders (both prior to and during the bidders conference) and distribute to all bidders represented at the conference.
  
• Request Clarifications from Bidders - After receipt of the proposals/bids, review the submissions and identify any areas requiring clarification or correction. Bidders should be given a fixed period of time in which to respond. It is likely that more than one iteration may be required in this question-and-answer cycle, i.e., bidder's responses may well engender additional questions.
  
• Conduct Bidder Reference Checks - Contact and interview bidder references to obtain additional information concerning the vendor, the implementation support provided, on-going support, and other related information. Areas of interest include:
  
  • Functionality
  • Technology
  • Hardware
  • System support and maintenance
  • How smoothly the installation went
  • Response to support requirements
  • Quality of training materials and sessions
  • Number and cost of change orders
  • Integration
  • "Bug" resolution and warranty support.
  • Quality of bidder staffing and suitability of the firm for that type of client
    
• Develop Product Demonstration Scenarios - Define approximately ten product demonstration scenarios to force structure on the product demonstrations that bidders will conduct. These scenarios should be representative of the client's processing needs, and they should be designed to exercise the capabilities of the software products that were proposed by bidders.
  
• Conduct Oral Presentations / Product Demonstrations - The demonstration scenarios (see above) should be provided to the bidders prior to the scheduled date for the demonstrations. The client evaluation team should attend each product demonstration and observe how the proposed system responds to the client's specific requirements. LRWL ensures that agendas and topics of interest to the client are covered, rather than what the bidders want to cover.
  
• Score Technical Proposals - Facilitate the scoring of bidders' technical proposals prior to opening the cost proposals (to ensure that evaluations are objective and not initially influenced by economic considerations).
  
• Open Cost Proposals - At this point, the cost proposals are opened and cost information is entered on the Excel scoring spreadsheet, which will automatically re-compute bidder rankings, taking the cost bids into account.
  
• Update Scoring - Update bidder scores based on cost proposals received.
  
• Best and Final Offers - Request Best and Final Offers (BAFOs) from bidders, if appropriate.
  
• Adjust Scoring - Adjust bidder scores as necessary based on BAFOs received.
  
• Select Winning Bid - Facilitate selection of the bidder that represents the best value to the client based on the adjusted scores and revised bidder ranking.
  
• Negotiate Contract - Negotiate contract provisions, scope, cost, and terms with the apparent winner to secure the most favorable terms and conditions possible.