Unpacking Competitive Bid Debriefs

Every day hundreds of organizations conduct competitive bids to pick the best supplier to meet their needs. Unfortunately, too many organizations fail to properly incorporate a critical component of the bid process - supplier debriefs. A supplier debrief is a formal (virtual or in-person) meeting with suppliers to help them understand the strengths and weaknesses of their bid. Debriefs can be done at any down-selection point where the number of suppliers is reduced - but at a minimum...
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Every day hundreds of organizations conduct competitive bids to pick the best supplier to meet their needs. Unfortunately, too many organizations fail to properly incorporate a critical component of the bid process - supplier debriefs. A supplier debrief is a formal (virtual or in-person) meeting with suppliers to help them understand the strengths and weaknesses of their bid. Debriefs can be done at any down-selection point where the number of suppliers is reduced - but at a minimum should be done shortly after the final supplier selection/award for procurement initiatives where suppliers have spent considerable time, resources and costs participating in a bid process.Many countries have laws that require supplier debriefs for public procurement initiatives - especially for larger and complex procurements. However, to our knowledge - no country has legislation requiring private sector organizations to do supplier debriefs. Unfortunately, far too many procurement professionals in the private sector believe supplier debriefs are not a valuable use of the buyer's or the supplier's time and don't do them. The logic is that if supplier debriefs are not required by law, why bother to do them? While some private companies do provide supplier debriefs, we often hear from procurement professionals that they don't feel comfortable with the best way to manage the supplier debrief process. We argue supplier debriefs - both for the winning and losing suppliers - should be considered an essential part of any procurement initiative. This white paper is a collaboration between the University of Tennessee, NEVI (the Dutch Association for Purchasing Management) and the Sourcing Industry Group (SIG) and is provided as an open-source resource to help educate procurement professionals on the why, what, who and how of conducting good supplier debriefs in the private sector.