In today's increasingly complex higher education environment, human capital support activities can be overwhelming to keep up with for institutions of every size. BCG works with institutions of all seizes to seek out solutions to a myriad of problems.
Your Source For More Effective RFPs Higher education is a unique and demanding environment for employee benefits. One-size-fits-all approaches to selecting a benefit plan are not appropriate or effective, yet ensuring that you are comparing apples to apples has been an increasing challenge in a fast-changing benefits market.
Benefit Consulting Group (BCG) offers significant capabilities in the design of very comprehensive requests for proposals (RFPs) to facilitate more complete and concise RFP responses.
Many companies today, particularly in the area of employee benefits, rely on securing competitive bids through the RFP process. The practice has now become so commonplace that several weaknesses have been created in the process:
RFP templates have been created over time and have not kept pace with industry changes
RFP templates become a hodge-podge of language that can be unclear or misleading
RFP templates have failed to cover issues that are critical to your specific operation, goals and objectives
BCG’s substantial experience in designing RFPs and knowledge of higher education’s unique needs helps us to achieve a competitive procurement process and helps you to make an informed, balanced decision. Our RFP design process facilitates:
A very detailed and comprehensive customized questionnaire
Pre-selection of qualified candidates to respond to your RFP
An effective competitive response to achieve optimal terms, conditions, and pricing
Clear, concise information requests
Detailed analysis of products and services to uncover vendor strengths and weaknesses as well as to identify areas of value-added opportunities
More clearly define the products or services that are being requested
More reliable and in-depth evaluation of qualified vendors
Better Responses by Clearer RFP Design A well-designed and intelligently written RFP will provide the tools you need to select the best vendor and ensure an ongoing, valuable relationship. Critical components of the RFP include:
Knowing what you’re looking for in a vendor (capabilities, scope, size, temperament, scalability)
Sharing with vendors your larger goals and objectives for your employee benefit programs
Defining the full parameters of the products and services you desire
Establishing all requirements for each product and service as well as for the overall program
Defining performance measurement systems and being sure vendors understand and are capable of reporting in the manner required
Understanding the vendor’s point of view to facilitate fairness and ensure that the RFP is realistic
Defining clearly the transitional period and expectations for timelines and deliverables
Stating clearly all pricing, payment terms, adjustment parameters, dispute handling, lines of communication, etc.
