Departments » Marketing » Win-Loss Summaries

Weld County, CO

Agency – Weld County, CO

Interviewee – Jacob Mundt, Director of Web Development and GIS

Interview Date – 5/20/16

Outcome – Loss

Proposal Bid – $90,985

Proposal Date – December 2015

Winner – not decided yet; vendors have presented and the selection should be made by end of May

Why did we lose?

  • Our proposal was disqualified because of our answers to 4 questions that were required functionality
  • Even after John tried to revise and clarify our answers, they said that our original response was a legal document and that they could not accept revised answers
  • Hence, we never had a chance to give a presentation or demo of our solution
  • Personally, Jacob said that we probably could have met their requirements but we missed on 4 required pieces of functionality

Other points

  • They issued an RFI to gather information and benchmark price points
  • Then they wrote a very robust RFP with 600 technical questions and requirements, which Jacob said was meant to filter responses
  • In the end, 7 responses were received, 3 were disqualified and 4 moved on to the final round
  • The process was clearly driven by some very technical team who were planning to keep the technology in-house
  • As far as decision criteria, their most important point was technology fit followed by functionality and the web editor interface
  • While Jacob didn’t say who won yet, he said they were impressed by one vendor that had in-place editing and a more pleasing, easier and more aesthetic interface for non-technical users (they have approximately 20 web editors)
  • One of the Weld County team was at NAGW last fall and we spent a lot of time talking with him on several occasions 

Takeaways

  • In situations where the buyer team is very technically focused and the RFP is very detailed, we should make sure that the proposal gets reviewed by someone with the technical knowledge to make sure we answered the technical questions accurately
  • Having a 600 question RFP should also be a RED FLAG that the process is being driven by people who are inclined to want to keep the technology in-house  

Excerpts of emails between John and Jacob regarding the 4 questions:

From Jacob on 4/1

Thank you for your proposal in response to Weld RFP #B1600037 for Web CMS for County Internet and Intranet Websites.  We have completed our initial review, consisting of our Security Team, Web Development Team, Technical Operations Team, and Project Management Office.  While we greatly appreciate the effort you put forth in your proposal, we regrettably will not be moving forward with the solution that Vision Internet proposed.  Some notable reasons as to why this proposal was not selected are listed below: 

·       No support for Security Requirement SE-03 (AD/SSO)

·       No support for Security Requirement SE-07 (DB Encryption)

·       No support for Security Requirement SE-14 (SIEM integration)

 

From Redfern on 4/8

Here you go. I just want to clarify with you that we are not an open source platform. Is this what you are looking for?

 

Here are the answers in yellow

 

·       What language(s) is your core cms written in?

ASP.NET

·       Vendor Response Questions TC-01, SE-03, SE-07, and SE-14 are required but listed as not supported.  Please provide any additional context?

TC-01 – This is not an open source platform and no access to source files is given. We will be introducing new functionality later this year that will give some access to widget Razer code (similar to JavaScript) and CSS changes.

SE-03 – Active Directory and SSO supported

SE-07 – Database supports encryption for sensitive content

SE-14 – The CMS logs nearly all changes and permanently retains the data. No function to be sent to outside incident and management utility. Might be possible through custom development however

 

From Jacob on 4/11

After review I understand the confusion.  Our CMS proposal was reviewed by several groups and your comments below did not make it into the final summary.  However, SE-14 was deemed critical by our security team, and as clarified below, is still not a supported item.  I will update the scoring sheets with your comments but unfortunately this does not change our path forward with Vision right now.  In the event we are unable to find a solution from our shortlist, we may repost the bid.