Sunday, October 10, 2010


The importance of competitive bidding

When businesses seek to conduct impartial research about a subject near and dear to them, I think it's an important practice of good governance to obtain competitive proposals and quotations from at least three reputable vendors.

I don't think it's good practice to allow "the new guy" to wire the contract to his former employer, then when publicly called out about it, to ignore the problem entirely. It would seem that the world's fifth-most popular website doesn't see things my way.

Congratulations, Q2 Consulting LLC. You're surely the pride of Oklahoma now.

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1 Comments:

At 10:05 PM, April 25, 2011, Anonymous Sean Parnell said...

I agree wholeheartedly.

When I took a job with an office equipment manufacturer, I wanted to hire my old market research and consulting firm. My boss urged me to get three additional proposals. I reluctantly agreed.

In the process, I learned something valuable: several boutique market research firms would go on and on about their methodology but when I asked who actually did the interviews, it was always part-timers and those with limited experience. Like my firm today, my old firm only employed MBAs and undergrads with standout business experience.

I wound up hiring my old firm and was able to articulate their differentiation to my boss. For a variety of reasons too long to list here, the project turned out to be a success, and one that would lead to major market share gains.

To be fair, it could have gone the other way, hence the need to do your due diligence. Either way, you'll be the better person for it.

 

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