Ingram Micro Serves Up RFP Tool For Government Contracts

Ingram Micro has developed a tool to help solution providers slash the time it takes to complete a request for proposal (RFP) for a government project.

The RFP Technical Response Tool is available to all solution providers, but those in the Santa Ana, Calif., distributor's GovEd Alliance will get a discounted price, said Bob Laclede, general manager and vice president for the public sector at Ingram Micro U.S.

The tool is priced on a per-RFP basis, and solution providers also can buy a 12-month, unlimited RFP service package for $900 for non-GovEd Alliance members.

Laclede said Ingram Micro developed the tool in-house after several resellers complained about the process of filling out RFPs for major contracts that can include up to 30,000 SKUs.

"Those customers need special pricing, they need list price, discount off list, country of origin. For years, we and every other distributor have been doing this on a big Excel spreadsheet," he said. "The first pass is bad enough, but then you might get 52 price changes. It gets to be a tremendous task updating it, synching it. Excel is a great tool, but it's not a great for that."

Ingram Micro used an Access database that solution providers can access on an FTP server, which lets them update SKUs and flow the information right into the RFP, according to Laclede. "We tested it with several resellers, and they said it saves a tremendous amount of time. It sames us time as well. We decided to formalize it and offer it to everybody," he said.

Projects starting at several hundred SKUs are ideal for the tool, Laclede noted. "Also, most contracts are going for one, two or five years. We are updating our pricing quarterly; resellers are updating products. It's something they can use not only at the beginning, but also throughout the RFP," he said. "We see small resellers, big resellers. The tool is very simple."

Eric Bergman, manager of Department of Defense government contracts at Databit, a New York-based solution provider, said the tool reduced the number of people working on a NASA Scientific and Engineering Workstation Procurement (SEWP IV) contract from six to one.

"Keeping up with [contract] changes and pricing is a lot of manual work. We can't keep six people on a contract. We need them out selling product. The system has really saved me a lot of time and resources," Bergman said. "It has been a great tool, especially for very large RFPs that require pricing for many items. There are tens of thousands of products in this particular contract. Using Ingram's system, I'm able to adjust my pricing tables and replace easily any equipment no longer GA-compliant."

Ingram Micro plans to offer a free online training seminar June 20 at 2 p.m. EST to explain the RFP tool program.