Why Teleconvergence Only Submits RFPs
Teleconvergence fully realizes that each major vendor may have hundreds of engineers with incredible expertise and applications experience with that company's products. These engineers have resolved problems and issues similar to those of any potential customer many times and in many ways. For Teleconvergence to presume that we know any company's products as well as its engineers is a stretch we do not make and a statement of confidence we could not justify.
On the other hand, Teleconvergence is completely capable of evaluating many companies' proposals in response to our client's RFPs, requesting clarifications of those proposals, and suggesting modifications to those proposals. Teleconvergence routinely engages each company's engineers in fruitful discussions designed to place each company's proposals in the best possible light.
- There is an inevitable presumption inherent in a RFB/RFQ that the writer both fully understands the company's requirements and knows the best way to meet them. Obviously, Teleconvergence feels we are competent to ascertain and communicate the client's needs. But that's where we draw a very important distinction.
- Since our RFPS initiate a dialogue as well as a response, each prospective vendor has ample opportunity to inform us if they believe our RFP unfairly favors a particular vendor. If the statement is valid, we immediately issue a correction to rebalance the playing field. RFBs and RFQs disinvite any dialogue or response other than to the specifications. Errors or inadequacies in the RFB/RFQ generally are not to be challenged.
- In a RFB or RFQ the author necessarily not only defines the requirements, but also frames the nature, terms, and parameters of the solution. In other words, the writer of the RFB/RFQ, by postulating the solution, replaces the potential combined knowledge of all the vendors' technical resources with his or her own. Such a tradeoff, in our opinion, is simply not in the best interests of the client.
- In any RFP/RFQ the author inevitably risks unwittingly precluding or excluding some responses by specifying the nature of the desired response based upon the author's view of the possible responses and the most desirable approach.
- Finally, there's also the risk that the author is biased for or against a particular solution or technology and manifests this bias, knowingly or otherwise, in the RFB or RFQ.