Local City Government Bid

LOL, congrats on the order.

I did one of those once......I thought it would be OK since I would make a little money of my credit card from the manufacturer spiff.  Imagine my surprise then my spiff claim got rejected because the manufacturer doesn't pay on that type of deal.  That was a kick in the teeth.

Fisher, that was my first question to our Samsung rep. I wanted him to have in an email to me I'd still get my spiffs. He told me I would and put it in writing in an email so we will see. The government drives me nuts. Service prices were all over the board and our machine price was 72 cents less per device than the next guy, with almost no margin in the deal. 

In my scenario it was state contract and the paperwork gets invoiced directly by the manufacturer (not Samsung).  Two console machines.

I manage in the federal space and take pride in assisting our clients in building an industry wide open, though "friendly" to my organization,  SOW in order to make the best use of the taxpayers hard earned dollars.   

what you see as a whore, I see as reps who didn't take the time to build relationships with the end users to build workflows that differentiate, while doing a wonderful service to the taxpayers of your community.  

If if your going to quote and hope, whether commercial- state - local- federal- of course the winner will have to whore it out, but that's been going on since the toner was liquid ! 

good luck posted:

I manage in the federal space and take pride in assisting our clients in building an industry wide open, though "friendly" to my organization,  SOW in order to make the best use of the taxpayers hard earned dollars.   

 

what you see as a whore, I see as reps who didn't take the time to build relationships with the end users to build workflows that differentiate, while doing a wonderful service to the taxpayers of your community.  

 

If if your going to quote and hope, whether commercial- state - local- federal- of course the winner will have to whore it out, but that's been going on since the toner was liquid ! 

Most, if not all of the reps who are part of the P4P Hotel (especially Jason) take the time to build relationships, optimize workflows and consult for their prospects.

The problem is that whatever great information or solution you uncover that solves their business/workflow pains, they take that and ask every other vendor to re-bid using the new information and it becomes a price game again.

I refuse to bid on government deals anymore for exactly that reason. Government buyers are mandated to select the best price, not the best value.

Czech

It's a little different here in NJ.  Municipalities, Cities, State Agencies can buy off of State Contract and or US Communities.  Most prefer NJ State Contract, which allows them to choose the vendor of their choice, as long as the pricing from the dealer or direct is in compliance with the NJ State pricing.  Thus a municipality could actually not take the lowest price, buy rather opt for a higher price with a vendor that has better service.

Art

Thanks Czech

I will say with this opp the bid was being contested by someone and the purchasing manager did tell the competitors and the mayor that we have a "good" relationship with the city.....not sure where she got that since we have one machine out of about 20, but I'll take it. I told her that the way I understood our state was that she could award the bid to whomever showed the most value to the city. She said that was true however She did still take the lowest bid, which happens to be ours, and made it apparent when we were doing our docs that she still took the lowest price. I don't deal with these bids much and this one wasn't a ton of work but I am glad that our pricing will be set for 2+ years for them as the IT and purchasing have both said they want everything to be standardized to one brand system so we have the opp to do 10-15 more machines in the next year and they do $1 out leases for 5 years and keep for another 3-5 before a new bid. We are able to increase service each year so we should be in a good place.

Czech posted:

good luck posted:

I manage in the federal space and take pride in assisting our clients in building an industry wide open, though "friendly" to my organization,  SOW in order to make the best use of the taxpayers hard earned dollars.   

 

what you see as a whore, I see as reps who didn't take the time to build relationships with the end users to build workflows that differentiate, while doing a wonderful service to the taxpayers of your community.  

 

If if your going to quote and hope, whether commercial- state - local- federal- of course the winner will have to whore it out, but that's been going on since the toner was liquid ! 

Most, if not all of the reps who are part of the P4P Hotel (especially Jason) take the time to build relationships, optimize workflows and consult for their prospects.

The problem is that whatever great information or solution you uncover that solves their business/workflow pains, they take that and ask every other vendor to re-bid using the new information and it becomes a price game again.

I refuse to bid on government deals anymore for exactly that reason. Government buyers are mandated to select the best price, not the best value.

Govt buyers have the choice of "low price technically acceptable" or "best value" when posting their bids.