In many companies, supplier evaluation takes place at an early stage of the freight procurement process.
And this is for a good reason! Just imagine that after a cumbersome tendering process – which btw doesn’t need to be if you use TenderEasy – you are about to award one or multiple logistics service providers and only then you realize that they do not comply with your company policy, your quality requirements or any other aspect not directly addressed in the bid sheet.
What we recommend, especially when working with new suppliers, is running an RFI – a request for information – before the actual RFQ. This way, you are able to evaluate your service providers’ basic abilities and qualities before inviting them to the RFQ.
In the RFI, you can ask for all kinds of information: next to the right contacts for the RFQ, you can request general items such as company address, company or fleet size and so on.
Naturally, you can specify your query further and cross-check if the potential suppliers adhere to your company rules, such as payment terms and days, or if they have certain certification.
Did you know that in TenderEasy, you cannot just smoothly run tenders - as the name indicates - but also RFIs? You have the option to weigh the answers to fine-tune the results – in this case, a list of viable suppliers to invite. Based on the outcome, you can then group the suppliers based on e.g., their capabilities, geographic scopes or capacities, etc. Maybe it turns out that LSP A is not suitable for your road tender, but has capabilities in airfreight, whereas LSP B should take part in your road RFQs, but not in air freight requests.
Reach out if you want to know more.
