How do I apply Best Value?
Identify the Possibilities before the RFx
Local procurement works with the purchasing department to identify the possible suppliers for the desired goods or services. Here are a few criteria to keep in mind:
- Look for a vendor that can offer great value but may have been overlooked previously due to cost considerations.
- Look for lesser known or emerging businesses, such as those who meet the small or diverse business criteria. The University of California has set a goal to increase spend with small and diverse businesses to 25% by 2025.
Choose the Relevant Factors
Purchasing departments know what’s important on the qualitative side. Their evaluation teams need to develop the criteria for critical functionality. Here are a few example criteria:
- Company expertise
- Technical expertise
- Services levels/maintenance
- Minimum functionality/quality
- Purchasing departments know their budget (ceiling for financial proposals)
- Sustainability – more information can be found at the UC Procurement Services website and an RFx Question Library is located in the Sustainable Sourcing Primary Resource Guide
Check questions against California Government Code to make sure no questions are discriminatory
Assign Values
Qualitative (technical) criteria, including Sustainability, are gathered in the Questionnaire section
- Within the Questionnaire, each criteria category, provided by the Purchasing department, is listed as a Questionnaire Name.
- Questionnaire Names are categories (groups) of questions.
In this example, Sustainability is a category. There are three more categories for IT-specific questions - Sustainability category, as it impacts the sourcing opportunity, must account for a minimum of 15% of Total Score
- Local procurement will work with the Purchasing department to weight qualitative Questionnaire categories
Quantitative (financial) criteria are gathered into the Price Sheet section
- Cost must account for a minimum of 25% of Total Score