How to Accept an Alternative Tender
When your company or organization wants to bring in an outside contractor for a specific piece of work, it's common to issue an invitation to tender, more commonly known in the U.S. as a request for proposals, or RFP. This invites outside companies to bid for the work. Your RFP should be as specific as possible about how you want the work done and how the tender or proposal should be constructed. It may be wise, however, to anticipate that a bidding company might have a cost-saving or time-efficient way of completing the contract that you hadn't considered. In that case, you may accept what’s known as an alternative proposal, or one that deviates significantly from your specified terms. Build this possibility into your process.
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Instructions
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State clearly within the request for proposals that you reserve the right to accept alternative proposals. This protects you from legal action from other bidding companies if you decide to accept a nonconforming proposal.
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Request within the RFP that the bidder also submit a conforming proposal alongside his alternative proposal. This gives you a better idea of how to evaluate the alternative and whether this particular bidding company has the ability to do the job.
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Ask that alternative proposals clearly state the reason for nonconformance and that they list as specifically as possible the advantages to both the principal and the bidder of the alternative.
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Determine which of the conforming proposals you would have chosen so that you have something specific against which to judge the alternative proposal.
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Scrutinize the alternative proposal closely alongside the best conforming proposal. It must contain at least as much precision of language as a conforming proposal on both commercial and technical details. It should also give precise financial terms.
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Inform all bidding companies of your decision within the time limit specified in your RFP. Provide feedback explaining why you've accepted an alternative proposal, but respect the successful bidder’s commercial confidentiality.
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