Procurement and Vendor Management

QSM helps you take control with data-driven vendor oversight.

Vendor management—it doesn’t have to be a crap shoot.

Designed for: IT procurement organizations

Successfully procuring software from a vendor can be a heavy lift for both public- and private-sector organizations around the globe.

All too often, vendors deliver software late, over-budget, and with significantly less capability than the contract specified.

Fortunately—with QSM by your side—this problem is entirely preventable.

Our experts will help you establish the objective framework, infrastructure, process and skillset you need to build a world-class quantitative vendor management organization—and put you back in control.

Procurement and Vendor Management Process

We've found that the best vendor management implementations emphasize getting objective, quantifiable results in each of the four primary acquisition stages.

1

Pre-Acquisition Stage

Establish a solid understanding of the system requirements, and use that information to perform an independent “should cost” estimate which explores all practical development strategies a reasonable vendor might propose.

2

Request for Proposal Stage

Develop a clear RFP to provide clarity for both vendor and customer. Request that vendors provide a quantified bid that includes system size, schedule, effort, staffing and quality at delivery. Request historical projects to support the bid, and establish monthly reporting metrics, using these same quantifiable measures.

3

Award Decision Stage

Evaluate all bidders using an objective and transparent process that will hold up under protest scrutiny. Identify low bids and bids that are grossly conservative. Compare these bids to the independent "should cost" estimate to understand variances. Quantify bids and place them into a scoring matrix.

4

Post Award

Provide complete transparency into the contract’s execution, including monthly health checks. When performance deviates from the plan, use QSM's adaptive forecasting to create revised estimates in real time—just as your car’s GPS recalibrates when you make a wrong turn.

Benefits

Establish realistic cost and schedule expectations early

Both customer and vendor will have a realistic appreciation of the requirements—leading to a better understanding of feasibility.

Smoke out unrealistic bids

Identify bidders with little to no chance of success—and quantify these determinations so they can hold up under protest scrutiny.

Identify the "good value" bids

Identify bidders who provide the best value from a cost, schedule and risk perspective.

Eliminate late in the game surprises

Our monthly health checks provide quantitative transparency into contract execution—leaving vendors with no place to hide and no chance for last-minute surprises.

Confidently predict the end game

Our forecasting algorithm acts like a GPS—combining real-time requirement updates with actual completion data to determine projected scheduling, cost and reliability.

Establish a vendor performance database for future procurements

This natural byproduct of our monthly health checks puts you in the driver’s seat for future procurements.

Return on Investment

Learn More About QSM Consulting

We offer a variety of industrial-strength solutions to meet all needs and budget requirements, including complete solutions, “lite” versions, and incremental build-outs.

We typically recommend a staged implementation, as it enables a client to realize significant value while getting to know our process. We also suggest working with us on a single project, to start. You’ll get a good feel for QSM consulting, its benefits, and its suitability for your organization.

Please contact our solution design consultants at 800 424-6755 to discuss your individual needs and constraints. We’ll draft a statement of work, and then work with your procurement team to get a master service agreement in place. Once a purchase order has been issued, we’ll start to execute the project.