Brown Sets Site On Remaking RFPs

Chicago-based consultant Ralph Brown on March 18 will launch EBuyerSolutions.com, an online RFP marketplace for travel buyers and vendors. The site already is set to feature up-to-date request for information and request for proposals specifications from 20,000 hotels and 17 agencies, including all of the megas so far except American Express and Carlson Wagonlit.

The site could save participants on both sides of the negotiating table a significant amount of money by simplifying and expediting the dissemination of vendor selection information.

EBuyerSolutions will provide online tools for designing and distributing uniform RFPs and analyzing vendors' offerings. It posts vendors' pricing and servicing information commonly included in RFPs and RFIs.

"Customizable templates for RFPs are provided at EBuyerSolutions.com, which buyers can download to their computers, tailor to their programs and then submit to as many vendors as desired using the sites' automated channels to suppliers," Brown said.

For buyers, annual subscriptions to the site will start at $375 and ramp up to $575 by November, when Brown intends to add technology, card, airline and ground transportation vendors to the online travel market. EBuyerSolutions is charging supplier companies $1,500 to $10,000 to be listed on the site, Brown said.

The company is in talks with the Association of Corporate Travel Executives and the National Business Travel Association to strike a deal through which members would have access to the site at a reduced cost.

Consultant and hotel RFP process expert Dan Geller, president of San Francisco-based firm WizBizWeb LLC, said the new site reflects that "we are moving through a cycle of innovation. The next stage will feature true electronic RFPs that will allow buyers and sellers to negotiate pricing and services in a free market environment, taking advantage of up-to-the-minute variations in supply and demand."

Ron Powell, vice president of meeting services and corporate travel at San Francisco-based McKesson Corp. and part of an eight-member travel manager panel that advised Brown on the creation of the startup Web site, said EBuyerSolutions' services will save time and trouble on RFPs and vendor selection. He said the site would shave two weeks off an agency RFP selection, which usually takes up to 10 weeks.

Powell, who handles $40 million in U.S. booked air volume, said the site's clear presentation of vendor data allowed him to "compare apples to apples" in the oblique world of agency services and prices. Agencies post data in 152 sortable categories on the site.

Global travel manager Colleen Guhin, who oversees 800 travelers at Phoenix-based OnSemiconductor Corp. and also served on the advisory board for EBuyerSolutions, said she would be most likely to use the service for hotel RFPs, which she renegotiates through a laborious process every year.

The site employs the widely used NBTA hotel RFP form, Brown said. Such major brands as Hyatt, Hilton and Holiday Inn are represented on the site, as well as some smaller chains.

Ellen Mughal, vice president of marketing at St. Louis-based mega TQ3 Maritz Travel Solutions, hopes the site will "provide buyers with an easier, more efficient way to identify and evaluate travel partners. And for us, we hope it cuts back on the amount of time and effort required for submitting bids." TQ3 Maritz has a dedicated staff of six that responds to RFPs.

In making a sale, Mughal said, "the key is to have a relationship with the customer. To get a bid in blindly is not often a recipe for success." Despite the lack of traditional relationships in Web-based buying and selling, Mughal is comfortable with the concept that if all things are equal, agencies will be effectively represented on the site.