Siemens UK Pilots RFP Tool

London - Using a new British e-procurement tool, Siemens UK recently launched an online request for proposals for travel management company services, reducing the time typically spent on such bids. The e-procurement supplier, E Travel Advisors, said its tool not only slashes the duration of a bid by well over half, it also greatly improves the quality of responses that buyers receive from suppliers.

The first incarnation of ETA is only for TMC bids, but future releases will widen the scope to RFPs for airlines and other travel suppliers. Although managing director Karen McGee designed ETA mainly with multinational bids in mind, Siemens UK used ETA to whittle its choice of domestic TMCs to two. Both will make presentations during the next couple of weeks.

Siemens travel manager Chris Reynolds said the firm reduced the time it spent on the bid process from an average 31 days in previous exercises to just nine. The request for information stage was cut from six days to two, compiling the RFP from 10 days to three and evaluating suppliers' proposals from 15 days to four.

"I hope this will become the standard way of doing RFPs," said Reynolds, who is based in Manchester. "It would be hard to go back to the paper chase. That would be a real step backwards."

The first element of ETA's tool is an RFI module, in which TMCs provide standard information, such as locations, number of personnel and out-of-hours services. Buyers can apply an optional weighting system to the information.

The RFP element lets buyers provide crucial data required by suppliers—such as city pairs, transactions and volume—plus travel policies and company overviews. Buyers can use provided customizable databases and briefing templates and can add information fields of their own. There also is a supplier proposal module, in which buyers again can choose from customizable sections on service configuration, management information specifications and pricing proposals. Suppliers can brand the response to give their own look, and there are spaces in the document to make creative proposals as well. Also included is an evaluation tool for weighting and assessing answers. The other sections include a project setup tool, which automates such time-consuming tasks as alerting the buyer if a supplier misses a scheduled deadline, and a collaboration tool. This lets the project manager pool information with other team members and discuss documents internally. The buyer can collate all suppliers' answers to a single question on the same screen.

ETA makes its money from both buyers and suppliers. Buyers pay a one-time fee to use the service. Suppliers pay an annual subscription to be uploaded into the RFI library and compete in RFPs for which they are selected. ETA so far has signed eight TMCs as subscribers, including American Express, BTI UK, Carlson Wagonlit Travel and TQ3 Travel Solutions EMEA.

"We used to have files for each supplier's response and half a dozen of us would sit around a table passing the files among us," Reynolds said. "We should not be doing that in the 21st century. Now we can sit in our own offices or at home to evaluate the responses, so it is a real cost and time saver. The responses from suppliers were better, and we were able to do justice to them in our evaluation for the first time."

Pieter Rieder, vice president for multinational sales at American Express, said, "It has real benefit for the standard information that makes up 50 percent to 60 percent of every bid," he said. "I have a little anxiety about whether we can use the process to convey our very different approach at Amex that distinguishes us from our competitors."

McGee, who worked in international sales for 12 years with Carlson Wagonlit Travel and TQ3 Travel Solution before forming ETA, said she designed the solution principally to improve multinational bids because these tend to run into the greatest difficulties. "International project leaders can be far removed from what is going on in other countries," she said. "It may, for example, be difficult for an American team leader to appreciate the importance of rail in France and Germany or to ask TMCs how they would handle cross-border ticketing issues. ETA lets buyers go into detail on aspects like service configuration and fee arrangements in each country and build in contributions from colleagues overseas. If people in those countries do not feel involved, it can really hold back the project." ETA allows buyers to knit together detailed RFPs for up to 40 countries.

"ETA will be even more beneficial on a multinational basis," Reynolds said. "Last time we did a pan-European bid, the team involved had to make about three trips each to meet. This would probably reduce the number of trips to one. Most of the questions would apply to any market, but if a buyer has any market-specific questions, it is very simple to add them."