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On several occasions, I have seen and heard of RFPs written so specifically as to rule out all but one bidder. The receiver of one of the contracts admitted as
by ANH 16y ago
On several occasions, I have seen and heard of RFPs written so specifically as to rule out all but one bidder. The receiver of one of the contracts admitted as much to me; the request was written for him, because the civil servant in control of the dollars knew who he wanted before any proposals were in.
On the other hand, I have seen (and worked on) contracts taken away from companies with high overhead and shifted to a more nimble, but significantly smaller, competitor. In such cases it appears the contracting officers are taking steps toward less waste, but it is not always possible to know all of the factors that result in shifting a contract from one company to another.
And there is the hidden cost of doubling the size of the smaller company over night. How do they handle that growth? They say, of course, in the proposal that they can handle it, "Piece o' cake!" However, reality tends to intervene. But I digress...
- jseliger 16y agoOn several occasions, I have seen and heard of RFPs written so specifically as to rule out all but one bidder. My family's business does grant writing for nonprofit and public agencies, and we don't respond to RFQs and the like: http://blog.seliger.com/2009/12/27/why-seliger-associates-never-responds-to-rfpsrfqs-for-grant-writing-services/ http://blog.seliger.com/2009/12/27/why-seliger-associates-ne... for this reason, among others. The other problem we have, as described at the link, is that contracts to write grants are often wired for local grant writers, which makes it futile for us to apply.