Does your vendor bidding process go smoothly every time? Or, do you struggle to find the right vendor after going through the process?
When you need new vendors, competitive bidding can help you choose the best vendor for your property. But, getting the vendor bidding process right can be challenging. Between writing the RFP, choosing and communicating with vendors, and more, there are so many moving parts that it’s hard to stay on top of all of them.
But, if your vendor bidding process isn’t working, then you’ll end up with vendors who do subpar work, while charging you more than they should. This means that you’ll have high operating costs – making it impossible to maximize building profits.
The first step towards having a successful vendor bidding process is knowing whether yours works or not.
So, how do you know if your vendor bidding process is broken?
Here are 5 signs that your competitive bid process isn’t working.
1. You Use the Same Vendor to Avoid the Bidding Process
The first sign that your vendor bidding process is broken is that you avoid hiring new vendors because the process takes too much time.
When you need a new vendor, you try to find the vendor with every way other than competitive bidding. You might use vendors you’ve hired in the past. Or, you might hire based on recommendations from other property teams. You might even choose a vendor after searching for vendors online.
While these methods will get you a new vendor, it won’t help you choose the best one. You can’t compare a variety of vendors on price, service quality, or scope of work. So, you have to choose a vendor and hope they’re the best fit for you.
This can be risky because you have no idea how they stack up against others. So, you could be overpaying or getting low-quality work – which hurts your ability to make your building as profitable as possible.
Instead of avoiding vendor bidding because it’s time-consuming, you could use RFP automation software. With this software, you can send out a request in minutes. And, the software can manage vendor communication. That way, vendor bidding takes a few minutes – instead of weeks.
2. You Pay More for a Vendor Each Year
Another sign that your vendor bidding process is broken is that you pay more for the same vendor each year.
If you’ve worked with a vendor for a while, you probably get yearly price increases. While each increase is small, it can add up over time. If your vendor increases the price by 5% each year, after 5 years, you’ll pay 25% more – for the same service.
These yearly price increases can steadily increase your operating expenses – making your building less profitable.
Instead of sticking with the same vendor each year because it’s easier than finding a new vendor, you should routinely go through the competitive bid process.
While the traditional bidding process is time-consuming and highly manual, RFP automation software can make it easy. With premade templates, a vendor database, and more, you can get bids from vendors yearly to avoid the annual price increase of your current vendor.
3. You Can’t Compare Vendors Easily
Along with staying with the same vendor and having yearly price increases, struggling to compare vendors is another sign your vendor bidding process is broken.
Once you get bids from vendors, the hard work should be over. But, having to compare vendors can make it feel like the hard work is just beginning. You have to sort through pages and pages of vendor bids to find the information you need. And, every bid might not have the exact same information – making it difficult to compare vendors.
After you spend hours poring over the bids, you still have no idea which vendor is the right choice. So, you pick one and hope it works out. But, this can lead to choosing a vendor who doesn’t do the work you need or has high prices.
Rather than trying to manually compare vendors, you can use RFP automation software that automatically generates side-by-side comparison charts. At a glance, you can see which vendor has the best service history, price, and more. That way, you can choose the best vendor in minutes – and feel confident in your choice.
4. You Struggle to Manage Vendor Communication
The last sign that your vendor communication process is broken is that you struggle to manage vendor communication.
Throughout the competitive bid process, you need to communicate with vendors. Whether that’s sending your request, following up with unresponsive vendors, or reaching out to new vendors to replace unresponsive ones, you have to communicate constantly with vendors.
This constant communication can be difficult to manage when you already have so much on your plate. But, if you don’t respond promptly, you could lose out on the perfect vendor. Or, the process could drag out for weeks longer – leaving your property without a necessary vendor longer.
Rather than spending hours communicating with vendors during every competitive bid process, you could use RFP automation software. This software can automatically handle tedious communication tasks like following up. So, you can communicate with vendors quickly – without spending hours on it.
5. You Choose the Wrong Vendors
Choosing the wrong vendor is another sign your vendor bidding process is broken.
After you go through the competitive bid process, you choose a vendor to hire who seems like a good fit. But, once they start working, the vendor is never on time, does low-quality work, or even interacts with tenants negatively.
So, you have to pay another vendor to do the work over again to get it right. Or, you have to do damage control with upset tenants – who might still decide to leave. Because you chose the wrong vendor, you have to pay more for the work and might lose tenants and revenue.
Instead of selecting a vendor that seems like the right fit, you can make sure you choose a great vendor with RFP automation software. This software has a trusted vendor database filled with reliable vendors who do great work. And, you can check their service history, reviews, and more to feel confident in your vendor choice. That way, you always choose the best vendor – helping you cut expenses and maximize profit.
Wrapping It Up
The vendor bidding process is essential to finding great vendors at the right price for your property. But, if your vendor bidding process is broken, it can be hard to find the right vendor with reasonable rates. So, you end up paying more for subpar vendors – which increases your expenses while decreasing your profit.
If your competitive bid process doesn’t work, you can create a new process with bid management software. In just a few minutes, you can write a request from a template, send it to vendors from a trusted database, have the software handle vendor communication, and compare vendors side-by-side.
Looking for bid management software to fix your vendor bidding process? Consider using Prism. With Prism’s Bid Management module, you can use templates to craft RFPs, select vendors from a nationwide network, communicate with and compare vendors easily, and more.
Want to learn how you can find the right vendors at the right price for your budget? Learn how Spinoso Real Estate Group reduced the time spent on each RFP by 90% using Prism Bid Management.
