SAMPLE RFP TEMPLATE B 1.0 OVERVIEW of FIRM 1.1 Corporate profile 1.1.1 Full company name, address, telephone, and fax numbers of headquarters 1.1.2 Parent company information, if applicable 1.1.3 Addresses and numbers of other company facilities, if applicable 1.1.4 Core businesses a. What are your core business(es)? b. How long has your company been in business? 1.1.5 Employee composition a. What is the number of exempt employees? b. What is the number of non-exempt employees? 1.1.6 Client base a. Provide an overview of the size and mix (by industry) of your client base b. Provide annual transaction volumes for annual top five clients Clients Client 1 Client 2 Client 3 Client 4 Client 5 Annual transaction volume 1.2 Organization, culture, and management structure 1.2.1 Provide an organization chart of your executive and senior management. Include the following information: Name Title Yrs. with Company Time in Position 1.2.2 Annual employee turnover a. Exempt b. Non-exempt employees 1.2.3 Provide a description of your organization culture 1.3 Succession, training, and recruiting strategies 1.3.1 Describe your personal succession plans for exempt and non-exempt employees. Specifically, describe the career path of account team members. 1.3.2 Describe your company's approach to recruiting. What qualities or skills do you seek in an account representative (i.e. team leader for the COMPANY account)? 1.3.3 Describe your company's approach to training. 1.4 Business vision and outlook 1.4.1 Describe your growth strategy for the next 18 and 36 mos.
1.4.2 What components are critical to your strategy? What assumptions underlie your strategy? 1.5 Financial statements 1.5.1 Ownership -- public or private company. If public, provide a copy of your latest annual report. If private, what can you tell us about revenues and other financial details of your company? 1.6 Freight invoice audit and payment offerings 1.6.1 Describe your market offerings, including, but not limited to, freight invoice audit and payment of the following modes and services. Provide figures where available (e.g. number of carriers paid, transactions, freight dollars paid, etc.). Indicate the number of years your company has been auditing and paying freight invoices for each of the modes and services. Provide a breakdown of electronic versus manual transaction volumes. Domestic LTL, TL Domestic small parcel air and ground Domestic air freight International air freight Ocean carriage Household goods Customs brokerage invoices Other (specify): No. of Carriers Transaction Volume % EDI / % manual 1.6.2 Describe your processing capabilities (e.g. electronic, manual, etc.). 1.6.3 How do you audit accessorial charges? 1.6.4 Describe any capabilities to pay in foreign currencies. 1.7 Information technologies 1.7.1 EDI -- provide a list of the EDI transactions that you are capable of receiving and sending a. Has your company helped carriers become EDI capable? Describe your offering. b. Has your company helped clients become EDI capable? If so, describe your offering. 1.7.2 Internet offerings access for carriers and COMPANY to invoice status; payment history; reporting; etc. a. Describe your Internet site (provide address) and the information available to clients b. Describe any offerings to customize Internet offerings to clients c. Describe security measures related to protection of clients' information 1.7.3 Interfaces with SAP, WMS, etc. a. Describe your experience in integrating with clients' SAP, WMS, or other software. b. Describe the integration effort and team. c. What types of information did you extract or transmit, upon completion of the integration effort? 1.7.4 Imaging scanning capabilities; access to scanned invoices a. Describe your capabilities to provide scanned images of invoices. b. How can COMPANY access this image?
c. How soon, upon provider's receipt of the invoice, is the image available to COMPANY? 1.7.5 Other a. Provide the first page of standard management reports available to your clients b. Describe your on-line capabilities, if applicable, that allow clients to resolve irreconciliable or other questionable invoices. For example, can your clients provide missing account codes or other information directly to you? If so, how is this done? 1.8 Other market offerings Describe other market offerings that you believe to be value-added to COMPANY. Give examples of how you have assisted clients with special projects and the tangible benefits they have yielded. 1.9 Client base and references provide brief contact information (client name, division name, if applicable, contact name, title, telephone number, length of contractual relationship) and brief scope of services for the following clients, (e.g. audit only; payment only, audit and payment, etc.): Pharmaceutical industry Client Name and Division Contact Name and Title Tel. No. No. of Yrs. w/client Clients with similar freight transaction volumes and modal profiles Clients with similar IT and process challenges Clients with multiple divisions and account code complexities Clients for whom you are paying international (import, export, or foreign-to-foreign) freight bills Other client references 1.10 Other 1.10.1 Other information from provider. Provide any other information you would like to share with the Team. 1.10.2 Minority-owned and Women-owned Business Enterprises (MBE and WBE) COMPANY is committed to developing partnerships with minority and/or womenowned businesses (MBE and WBE) and with service providers who share this commitment with their vendors. Please share the following information with us: Supplier Profile -- select the group that best defines your company. (See Definitions Below) Large Business Small Business
Woman Owned Business Minority Owned Business (Please indicate status below) African American Asian / Pacific American Hispanic American Native American Other If you are a subsidiary of another organization, please provide the name of your parent company: If you are a minority/woman owned business, are you certified as such by an independent third party? Yes No If yes, please name the certifying agency: Effective 7/1/99, if you are doing business with the Federal Government, you must be certified by the Small Business Administration or a designated agency. Definitions Large Business: According to the federal government, this definition may vary based on your industry; for our purposes, we are referring to businesses with over 500 employees company wide. Small Business: Less than 500 employees company wide. Minority Owned Business: A business enterprise that is at least 51% owned, controlled, and operated on a day to day basis by one or more minority individuals. The term "minority" includes African Americans, Asian/Pacific Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and other groups as identified by the United States Small Business Administration. Woman Owned Business: A business enterprise that is at least 51% owned, controlled, and operated on a day to day basis by one or more Caucasian women. (Note: A woman owned firm where the woman is also a minority should be classified as a minority owned business above.) Minority/Woman Business Participation It is the policy of COMPANY that minority and woman owned business enterprises should have the maximum opportunity to participate in our sourcing process. Hence, contractors/suppliers who subcontract work to minority/woman business enterprises will be viewed as providing added value to their submission to COMPANY. If your company enters into a procurement contract with COMPANY, do you anticipate subcontracting any of the requisite manufacturing, materials, products, or services to one or more minority/woman owned business enterprises? Yes No If yes, what percentage of the work do you anticipate subcontracting to one or more minority/woman owned firms? %
2.0 APPROACH to IMPLEMENTATION COMPANY encourages all providers to weigh on the conservative side in preparing a response to this section. The success of this partnership will be directly driven by how smoothly the transition is managed. Providers should not underestimate the level of effort required to fully understand COMPANY diversity of freight audit and payment requirements. COMPANY expects the selected provider to lead the transition planning and implementation. 2.1 Overall approach to implementation 2.1.1 Provide an overview of your implementation approach for COMPANY. 2.1.2 What resources would you dedicate and in what capacities? 2.1.3 Provide roles and responsibilities for your proposed transition team. 2.1.4 How would you propose the phasing of implementation? 2.2 Communication strategy and management 2.2.1 Describe your communication strategy to support the transition. 2.2.2 What are the key components of your strategy? 2.2.3 How do you propose to manage execution of the strategy? 2.3 Detailed work plan with milestones Propose a detailed work plan that incorporates the following activities. Feel free to change the order and include activities that have not been listed here. Provide timeframes for activities and your interpretation of what they encompass. 2.3.1 Assess detailed requirements 2.3.2 Design processes 2.3.3 Integrate systems 2.3.4 EDI setup (for divisions not currently EDI capable) and testing 2.3.5 Design database 2.3.6 Develop standard operating procedures (SOP) 2.3.7 Training and documentation 2.3.8 Other 2.4 Expectations of COMPANY resources 2.4.1 What specific assumptions of COMPANY resource availability underlie your proposed transition workplan? Describe any resources, equipment, facilities, etc. that you will require from COMPANY for transition and the length of time required. Feel free to describe other resources needed from COMPANY. a. Transition management/administration team b. Information c. IT support d. Other 2.4.2 What other assumptions are incorporated in your work plan? 2.5 Other Provide any other information you wish to share with the Team regarding your approach to implementation 3.0 APPROACH to ON-GOING ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT 3.1 Account team for on-going management of COMPANY account 3.1.1 Describe the structure of the proposed account team for COMPANY. Provide titles, roles, responsibilities, and their locations. Indicate which individual(s) will be a fulltime resource on the team. a. Who will be the key contact for COMPANY from an overall account management standpoint? b. Who will have day-to-day responsibility? c. Where else have you deployed a similar account team structure?
d. Why is this approach the best one for COMPANY? 3.1.2 In addition to the proposed team, what resources are available to the account team? 3.2 Approach to delivery of basic services 3.2.1 Auditing a. Life cycle of freight payment processes -- Describe the processes in the lifecycle of an invoice as soon as it reaches your four walls, for electronic and manual invoices. Describe differences, if any, to these processes, if the bill of lading is electronic or manual. b. Redundant invoices Describe the procedures you have in place to prevent processing and payment of redundant invoices. c. Non-approved carriers Describe your approach to validating / auditing invoices from carriers who are not part of COMPANY carrier base. d. Account code management What is your approach to helping COMPANY manage account code issues? e. International invoices Describe your processes to audit international invoices (if different from above). f. Accessorial charges Describe your processes to validate and audit assessorial charges. 3.2.2 Aging and Payment a. Describe the processes in place to age invoices. b. What measures are in place to flag the account team during the aging process? c. How frequently will COMPANY receive requests for funds? d. What types of supporting documentation will be provided as part of the request for funds to COMPANY? e. When will carriers be paid and in what medium (e.g. check, wire, etc.)? How will funds be sent (US Mail, overnight, etc.)? f. Describe your processes to address accrual needs. g. Specifically, what is your process to split freight charges among multiple codes? h. Describe your processes to allocate expedited small parcel invoices to individual codes? 3.2.3 Reporting, querying, and archiving a. Describe your IT approach to developing and maintaining databases for COMPANY. Specifically, what applications, databases, tables, interfaces, etc. will be available to COMPANY for reports and queries? b. Of the information systems in (a), which one(s) will be managed and maintained by the provider? Which ones will be managed and maintained by COMPANY? c. How many months of invoices are accessible via your Internet site? How many months are kept in other media (e.g. tape, etc.)? d. Describe your scanning capabilities and access to images. e. Describe your archiving systems and the process by which COMPANY can access such invoices. f. Describe your exception reports. g. Describe the process to fulfill ad-hoc reporting requests. 3.3 Communication strategy 3.3.1 Describe the frequency and means of communication (e.g. for project status, continuous improvement, etc.) between your account team and COMPANY. 3.3.2 What types of management reports will you submit to COMPANY on a regular basis? 3.4 Customer satisfaction issue resolution strategy Exceptional customer service will be of paramount importance to the Team. For example, the Team expects the Provider to respond to COMPANY or carrier inquiries within 24 hours
of the call or e-mail to Provider. Provider must develop and communicate action plans for issue resolution within 48 hours of the initial call or e-mail. 3.4.1 What processes will you have in place to ensure the highest level of customer service (i.e. describe the measures you will take to ensure that full attention is given to COMPANY or carriers requests on a timely basis)? 3.4.2 Describe your approach to issue resolution. 3.4.3 Provide any other information regarding your approach to customer satisfaction. 3.5 Disaster recovery Provide information on your disaster recovery programs to prevent / minimize interruptions to the service COMPANY will receive from the relationship. Describe the measure you have in place for the following types of disasters: 3.5.1 Natural 3.5.2 Operational (system failures) 3.5.3 Power outages 3.5.4 Other 3.6 Quality programs continuous improvement 3.6.1 COMPANY will partner with the provider who are committed to helping their client identify and implement continuous improvement opportunities. Describe your continuous improvement program and an overview of the key processes. Give an example where you have helped a client achieve tangible benefits through your continuous improvement program. 8700 W Trail Lake Drive, Suite 100 Memphis, TN 38125 Tel: 901-759-2966 Fax: 901-759-2966 info@a3freightpayment.com www.a3freightpayment.com