Due to the massive changes that the pandemic has caused in the travel industry, a lot of the responsibility now falls on the travel managers. They must pick travel management firms that offer cost management, a top-notch travel experience, and traveler safety. Today’s top travel management companies provide cutting-edge travel management software, allowing your employee to book travel easily. And the best way to evaluate any travel management solution for your company is through the request for proposal or the RFP process. It’s a process that enables you to compare and evaluate the software options you have in terms of various criteria.
Let’s examine how your company should assess RFP requests for travel management.
What is an RFP process?
A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a thorough document used by companies to describe their needs for business travel and request proposals from potential travel management companies (TMC). Due to the fact that it calls for more thorough responses from the TMCs, RFPs differ significantly from both RFQs and RFIs.
Request for Information (RFI) requests provide you with general vendor information, whereas Request for Quotation (RFQ) requests provide you with pricing and payment information.
A request for proposals (RFP) for travel management services enables you to compare different suppliers and identify a travel management company that will assist you in reducing costs and time, boosting productivity and efficiency, etc. It evaluates the offerings of the vendors and selects the one that best meets your needs for business travel.
Consider a scenario in which you sent Requests for Proposals to a number of travel management companies you are considering and received favorable responses. You now have to evaluate them, which will be difficult.
The evaluation of an RFP is just as crucial as its distribution. You must take into account a number of factors in order to find the ideal solution for your organization.
How to write an RFP?
1. Start with the end in mind
You’ve realized that you need to outsource the expert management of your business travel because your company is expanding. Was this a result of more people traveling to dangerous places? Are expenses not being properly documented? Lack of a formal travel policy leading to leakage? You can concentrate on important components, streamline the process, and maximize your effort by ranking your top three to five evaluation objectives.
2. Involve your stakeholders
Establish a small internal stakeholder group with an interest in streamlining your travel procedures. Make sure to review the initial objectives (Step 1) and determine requirements from a departmental level with peers and leaders from finance and administration, at the very least.
3. Compile the most information you can
Although you might not have a comprehensive strategy for data collection in place, speak with your company’s road warriors to learn about their current travel patterns and spending patterns. Bidding agencies will be able to tailor offers to your needs, address areas of concern, and find opportunities to increase efficiency or improve service the more information you can provide about your current travel.
4. Invite the appropriate prospective partners
Even though your first inclination might be to reach out to every potential partner in the market for a wide range of options, this can be extremely overwhelming for a company that is new to the process. It takes time to submit and review RFPs, and if you have multiple responsibilities, sorting through the mountains of paperwork isn’t the most effective use of your time. You can narrow down the pool of candidates with a higher likelihood of fulfilling your needs by comparing your goals with market data on potential providers.
5. Financials: Compare like with like
Always give each bidder a blank financial offer template to fill out. This makes it simple to compare intricate offers side by side against the same metrics given the industry’s wide range of potential pricing models. Allow bidders to submit imaginative offers that illustrate out-of-the-box methods of achieving your objectives, but make sure each offer also includes a core set of requirements and consistent pricing elements to help determine your total cost of ownership.
How to choose the correct TMC?
In the current corporate travel management landscape, there are 5 key areas to consider before submitting a request for proposal. The goal is to ascertain whether the technology will help you the most in reducing costs, boosting visibility and adoption, delivering duty of care, and giving your traveling employees the flexibility, choice, and freedom they require.
- Cost savings: To keep costs in check, modern travel management solutions take advantage of technologically advanced traveler solutions. Many of the savings are noticeable in unusual ways.
- Traveler-First Philosophy: A traveler-first philosophy promotes greater adoption and increases program efficiency.
- Technological Foundation: Our lives are increasingly centered around technology, and modern travel management solutions require a broad range of technical capabilities to handle traveler booking and management effectively.
- Inventory: The foundation of any travel management platform is inventory. A thorough TMC will have content from a variety of sources.
- Support: A key component of any effective travel management tool is striking a balance between technology and VIP service when providing for travelers.
Conclusion
After requesting proposals from travel management companies, receiving responses, and shortlisting vendors, your buying committee will be tasked with conducting due diligence. which includes interviewing potential vendors, seeking references, obtaining documents for procurement and legal review, and finally making a decision. Not only is the RFP process important for your organization, but it is also important for the TMCs submitting proposals. Employees can use platforms such as Paxes to book and manage their corporate travel with efficient cost saving.
Suggested Read: Top 5 Advantages Of Travel Management Process Flow
RFP Process FAQs
What exactly is an RFP?
A document called an RFP, or Request for Proposal, outlines the specifications and requirements for a project or service that an organization needs. It is then distributed to prospective suppliers or service providers, who can then reply with a proposal outlining how they would satisfy those demands.
Why should one use an RFP?
By using an RFP, organizations can help ensure that they receive competitive offers from qualified vendors and that they get the best value for their money. It also offers a methodical way to assess vendors and pick the most suitable one for the task.
What information needs to be in an RFP?
An RFP should clearly outline the project or service that is being requested, the specifications and requirements, any deadlines or milestones, the evaluation standards that will be applied to choose a vendor, and guidelines for submitting a proposal.
