Procurement Consulting

 

NON-AWARD POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

So, you and your group undoubtedly worked long and hard to submit a proposal. You honestly believed your company’s solution and pricing represented the best value for the state. You met the Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) subcontracting requirements, signed the right documents, made the correct number of copies, and submitted it on time. Weeks have gone by. You presented your proposal in an oral question-and-answer session and followed up with clarification on any “muddy” issues. And then…you opened a letter or email from the procurement officer thanking you for participating in the RFP process. Bottom line: the contract is not yours.

 

Now what? If you are not a current client of the Maryland Procurement Group you may call us for a complementary one-hour discussion. Chances are excellent that our initial recommendation would be to immediately request a debriefing at which you should learn about the deficiencies in your proposal that were identified during agency review. There are numerous questions that can be asked and some that are not appropriate to pursue at this point (such as “Why was ABC’s proposal better?”). Contact us for a checklist of generic questions. During the debriefing, you may learn why you did not meet the requirements. “What? Not meet the requirements? That was the first thing we considered!” Well, welcome to the fuzzy area of treating unequal vendors equally and equal vendors unequally! Your proposal may not have been fairly evaluated. So, what do you do? Maryland Procurement Group can advise on your next steps, including whether to submit a protest to the procurement officer and, if denied, whether to appeal to the Maryland State Board of Contract Appeals (MSBCA). Appeals may take months but contracts and usually not awarded when there is an active protest before the MSBCA.

 

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