Best value for document output systems is a great goal, but most administrators don’t have a clear definition of what it is. Furthermore, most administrators don’t have the necessary contracting and management practices in place within a highly defined document output strategy to achieve best value.

This video explores nine contracting and management steps that administrators can use to achieve best value.

To get the white paper titled Optimizing Your Copier/Printer Fleet - First Five Steps To A Document Strategy, please visit our homepage at www.optimizon.com.

When you are ready to receive bids from suppliers or vendors for copiers/printers, there are a number of options.

Companies can put out a Request for Information (RFI), Request for Proposal (RFP) or a Request for Quotation (RFQ). Each has its place, depending on the organization’s level of expertise surrounding the copier/printer industry and their overall document output strategy.

The choice is also based on the level of understanding the organization has about its standards, needs, and desires. Let’s take a look at each one, and then I’ll give you our advice after being involved in over $100,000,000 in copier and printer acquisitions over the last 17 years.

The Request for Information (RFI)

A Request for Information (RFI) is used to collect information from suppliers related to their capabilities, and is usually used as an information gathering process to identify suppliers and build a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Quotation (RFQ).

The Request for Proposal (RFP)

A Request for Proposal (RFP) is used to gather proposals on specific commodities or services. It invites creativity and innovation from the suppliers regarding their response, which may be used in the analysis to select the winning supplier. The risk is that the RFP may fail to capture consistant information from suppliers,hampering the decision making process.

The Request for Quotation (RFQ)

A Request for Quotation (RFQ) is used to gather proposals on specific products or services. It typically involves price per item, payment terms, quality level per item and contract length. The RFQ includes detailed specifications of the items/services to force suppliers to provide more accurate quotes that are directly comparable. One main component of the Request for Quotation is that the specifications can be used as legal binding documentation for the suppliers.

What should you use to acquire copiers and printers?

Experience suggests that the more specific you can be in the initial bidding process, the more likely the supplier will provide their best offer first, reducing the need for re-bidding and nearly eliminate the need for end-of-procurement negotiation. This points directly to the use of an RFQ.

Five tips for creating a Request for Quotation for Copiers/Printers.

1. Do a complete objective assessment every time. Without complete, objective information, you won’t know your true needs and won’t be able to be specific enough in writing your RFQ to fully take advantage of its benefits.
2. Set your strategic, operational, and device-level standards yourself. Knowing what your organization wants and needs from your document output system will allow you to set quality levels and expectations, which suppliers will respond to in your RFQ. If suppliers are asked to help set standards, 10 times out of 10 the standards will help that supplier win the bidding process in some way. Set these yourself!
3. Issue your RFQ in a format that forces comparable supplier responses. The more you are able to ask questions and get responses in a yes/no/no, but manner, the easier the analysis of the responses will be.
4. Make the winning supplier’s bid legally binding. BUYER BEWARE: Supplier contracts are structured to eliminate your ability to make their responses legally binding — they also include clauses to negate most of what you negotiated with them through the buying process. DON’T SIGN THEIR CONTRACT! Write your own, and make sure you tie their RFQ response into the final documentation!
5. Manage your copier/printer environment to the quality levels the supplier agreed to. A legally binding Request for Quote (RFQ) is the number one way to achieve control over your suppliers and your document output system. If you don’t pay attention, there’s a good chance that you won’t get what the supplier agreed to. Equipment and supplier performance will slip, costs will increase, and a whole host of other issues may arise that are easily avoidable if you are paying attention.

If you have any questions, or need any help implementing any of these tips or deciding which option you will use to get bids from copier or printer suppliers, feel free to give us a call. We’ve been helping companies all across the United States for 17 years achieve lower costs, better equipment and supplier performance, and reduce the risk of copying and printing contracts. We’ll be glad to help!

NOTE: The descriptions of Request for Information (RFI), Request for Proposal (RFP), and Request for Quotation (RFQ) are based on descriptions found in Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com).

Today, Rod Davis, President and Founder of Optimizon presented a webinar about five well-known, but poorly-understood factors that block companies from achieving millions of dollars in savings on copying and printing.

This webinar explores management issues driving these factors, the real value you should expect from your copier/printer environment and secret strategies for reducing costs your vendors would rather you not know.

You’ll not only learn how to save a great deal of unnecessary costs, but you’ll be motivated and inspired to go make the necessary changes that Rod will share to immediately begin reducing your copying and printing costs.

Here’s the link to view the webinar: http://www.optimizon.com/resources/webinar5reasons.asp

If you know someone that would benefit from reducing their copying and printing costs, please forward this link on to them!

In a time when all purchasing decisions are difficult at best, Hallsville I.S.D. found the process of going out for Copier proposals almost painless, thanks to Rod Davis and Optimizon. Optimizon made the task so much easier by providing the expertise and the online proposal process.

Optimizon, a professional services firm, provided expertise for copier acquisition. Their professional staff helped HISD create, execute, and manage the process, while ensuring that we were asking the right questions and getting the right answers.

The district discovered that Optimizon’s easy-to-use services eliminated the risk and time-constraint issues associated with our copier project. Here was a professional organization - on our side! Mike Stanfield, technology director stated, “I was impressed that here was someone who did not sell copiers, someone who is vendor neutral, who had only our best interests at heart.”

Read the rest of this post here: http://www.hisdtech.org/opt.html

Today I came across an interesting blog post by a MPS firm titled “Managed Print Services Assessments - They Do Not Work, Stop Doing Them” (http://tinyurl.com/mgmzed). The basis for the article was that doing an assessment reduced a Managed Print Services vendor’s chance of doing business with a customer by 44% when compared to doing no assessment whatsoever. I can only wonder if this 44% difference is because of the customer’s experience of working with the vendor through the assessment - seeing their approach and the difficulties they have with collecting and delivering information in an environment/industry where they “should” be the experts. Contracting for copiers and/or printers without knowing where you are currently at (no assessment) is the equivalent of jumping off a 50 foot cliff without knowing how deep the water is. Feeling brave? Be my guest. But if you’re truly focused on improving your copying and printing operations, a complete and objective assessment is the only way to go — and the assessment process should build your confidence in the organization delivering it, not erode it!