RFPs aren’t something most organizations manage frequently enough to have a lot of know-how in house—so when it’s time to run one, it helps to have an experienced partner. Let SCT be your trusted advisor in designing and managing your RFP and vendor selection process. With hundreds of successful selections under our belt, we bring the expertise to tailor the process to your organization’s unique needs. Our guidance allows your team to stay focused on core operations while we coach and support you through each step, reducing the learning curve and ensuring a confident, well-informed decision.
Selecting a new system can feel overwhelming—especially if it’s been years since your last process or if you’re new to it altogether. SCT has facilitated and led hundreds of RFP processes, guiding teams step-by-step to ensure projects align with strategic vision and deliver positive business outcomes.
Stakeholder Alignment & Program Charters
Interviews with key stakeholders are coupled with education on operational best practices and industry trends to develop program objectives project requirements. Alignment to a vision for project deliverables and a future state operating environment allow effective scoping, scheduling, and staffing to follow.
Integrated System Architecture & Analytics Design
Evaluation of impacts to existing systems will solidify future state business processes and validate assumptions on level of effort and required skillsets.
Requirements Definition
Detailed definition of functional requirements by which vendors can be evaluated and implementation scoping can be agreed upon is the heart of an effective RFP process. SCT develops those requirements through interviews and the introduction of recommended best practices.
Critical Differentiators
SCT’s elevation of critical requirements and differentiators across functional requirements and provider approach can be leveraged in weighted scorecards as an effective tool to socialize priorities across different stakeholder entities within the organization and to ensure that priorities are aligned when selecting a vendor and solution.
Sourcing Strategy, RFP Oversight, & Vendor Selection
As project scope is defined, mobilizing the best-fit ecosystem of vendors and services providers across software, cloud, services, and support is needed. Designing partner-friendly programs leveraging our industry expertise provides a stream-lined approach and short list of candidates to deliver a successful implementation.
RFP Management
Managing vendor communications, scoring responses, consolidating evaluations, and tracking contract progress can be time-consuming and complex. Our proven methodology streamlines this process, keeping it efficient and transparent—while providing clear updates and recommendations to your executive team.
Program Planning
Company-wide projects require careful collaboration, roadmap development, milestone planning, and executive engagement. With hundreds of supply chain projects completed, SCT knows which questions to ask, critical success milestones to track, and KPIs to monitor—helping you build a strategic program plan that drives lasting value across your organization.
Scoping, Scheduling, and Roles & Responsibilities
Aligning project and program objectives with high level estimates of effort allows a best in class approach to take shape. Iterations allowing the evaluation of complexity and projected results allow refinement of scope to deliver optimal value. Considerations of staff availability and supplementation options allow time and cost tradeoffs to be evaluated, delivering an ideal balance of speed and value.
Program Justification & Business Case Preparation
Investment priorities will be scoped and sequenced, providing clarity on transformation strategies and business justification. Cost estimation and returns on investment will be combined into a time phased justification for your program, and combined with soft benefits and insights to socialize effort & procure funding.
Systems implementations are fraught with risk. SCT brings subject matter experts capable of assuring designs accommodate business requirements while reflecting industry leading practices. With an average of 20 years of experience, our advisors assist in navigating the challenges of project management excellence, change management, and communications to assure our clients of the highest likelihood of success in their implementations.
Industry Best Practices
Throughout design and continuously as issues arise and parking lots are addressed our advisors provide invaluable insight into industry recognized best practices and opportunities to improve existing processes. Managing the balance of delivering the best solution and deferring potentially disruptive changes to the business delivers a high value outcome with opportunity to grow from a foundation of success.
Implementation Methodology
Following the critical elements of a best in class methodology assures solution readiness and business preparations to absorb the extended capabilities that implementations have to offer. Our advisors, through years of experience, ensure the rigorous exercises of data cleanliness, testing thoroughness, and robust training are executed in alignment with the appropriate milestones.
Change Management
Change management is perhaps the most critical element assuring the success of an implementation. Preparing the business for the impacts of process and technology changes, while championing the positive impacts it will have on the personnel and the business can go miles towards driving the correct outcomes. SCT works with client leadership to build awareness of pending change and communicate effectively across stakeholder groups while preparing them for a successful transition.
Program Leadership Alignment & Coaching
Ensuring stakeholders maintain a clear line of sight to both project success and program objectives is critical. Opportunity often lies beyond your typical cadence of status reporting and milestone presentations. With ongoing and frequent dialogue beyond the mechanics, our advisors will cultivate a dialogue with project stakeholders deliberating project risks related to people, process, and technology, adding rigor to change management and calibrating scoping decisions to balance results with objectives around schedule and costs.
Steering Committee Oversight & Support
Formal, objective reviews of program success prove useful to calibrating program investment. Our advisors, extracted from the day to day challenges of operations and project management, provide a useful rudder to steer your program to achieve its longer term vision, and serve as a reality check when responding to trends and anticipating potential disruptions.
