Three Quotes and No Way to Score Them
We have requests for quotation, with real line items, sent to real suppliers, with responses recorded and comparable. We have no request for proposal, no request for information, no scoring model, no panel, and no sealed bids. Those are not degrees of the same thing.
A [request for quotation](/glossary/request-for-quotation) asks a supplier one question: what will you charge for this exact thing? A request for proposal asks a much harder one: how would you solve this, and why should it be you? Our product does the first properly and does not attempt the second.
That distinction is not about rigour or maturity. It is about what is being compared. And it decides whether this product belongs anywhere near your sourcing process.
What we have
A request for quotation with relational line items — real rows with an item and a quantity — sent to selected suppliers, with responses recorded against it. A comparison across the responses on price, delivery time and a rating, with weights that must sum to one. A persisted ranking and a best-quote status.
For a defined basket of known goods, that is the right tool and it works. You are asking several suppliers for a number against the same list, and a number against a list is exactly what a quotation is.
What an RFP needs that none of that provides
Four things, and each one is a different kind of absence.
- A non-price submission. A proposal is a document — a method, a team, references, a timeline. There is nowhere to receive one and nothing to compare it with, because a comparison across proposals is a comparison across prose.
- Criteria with weights that are not price, delivery and a rating. Technical capability, experience, local content, capacity, warranty. Our three factors are fixed; you cannot define a fourth.
- More than one evaluator. A panel scores independently and the scores are combined. Here there is one comparison, run by one person, with weights they chose at the time.
- Sealed bids. Submissions that cannot be seen until a stated opening. Nothing here conceals a response from anybody with access to the module.
The fourth one is the load-bearing absence. Everything else on that list can be done in a spreadsheet honestly. Sealing cannot.
That is worth dwelling on. A panel can score on paper and total the results by hand — laborious, and the outcome is as sound as the people. But the integrity of a competitive process rests on nobody having seen the numbers before the opening, and that is a property of the system holding them, not of the people using it. You cannot restore it procedurally after the fact.
Why a Tanzanian buyer runs into this specifically
Because the sourcing landscape here has a strong institutional layer running alongside ordinary commercial buying, and organisations move between the two constantly. A distributor supplying private customers on ordinary terms may also bid into, or run, processes with formal competitive requirements — public bodies, parastatals, large institutional buyers, donor-funded programmes.
The trap is that both look like "getting three quotes" from a distance. They are different obligations. One needs a comparable number; the other needs a defensible process, and a defensible process is mostly about what nobody could see and when.
| What you are running | What it needs | Supported here? |
|---|---|---|
| Routine competitive purchasing | Several quotes on one basket, compared | Yes |
| A framework or standing offer | Terms agreed once, drawn down against | No — every order is priced afresh |
| A technical evaluation | Non-price criteria with weights | No |
| A panel evaluation | Independent scores, combined | No |
| A sealed tender | Concealment until an opening | No |
| An audit trail of who decided what | Recorded approvals with actor and time | Yes, on the approval chain |
The last row matters. What this product does give a formal process is the half that comes after the decision: an approval chain with named actors and timestamps, an order that cannot be raised without an approved request, and a payment that cannot be released against a discrepant delivery. Those are real and they are worth having. They just do not evaluate anything.
What a tender module would actually need
We would rather set out the shape than imply this is a small extension of the quotation screen. It is not — it is a different document with a different lifecycle, and the sealing requirement makes it a security design before it is a feature.
Sealed submission and a recorded opening
The part that cannot be substituted procedurally, and therefore the part that decides whether the rest is worth building.
Definable criteria with weights
Non-price criteria set per tender rather than the fixed three. Mechanically straightforward once the document exists.
Panel scoring with independent scores
Each evaluator scores without seeing the others, and the combination is recorded. The audit trail here is the deliverable, not the arithmetic.
No dates on a public page. If you run formal competitive processes as a routine part of your operation, describe them and we will come back with a written scope, timeline and cost — including an honest view of whether a specialist tender platform is the better answer.
Scope a tender processWhat AWRA OpsHub does today
- Requests for quotation with relational line items, issued to selected suppliers, with responses recorded against the request.
- A weighted comparison across responses on price, delivery time and a vendor rating, with the weights validated to sum to one, and a persisted ranking.
- Supplier prequalification as a public application, review and approval workflow, with qualification expiry that deactivates a lapsed supplier automatically.
- Blacklisting with a recorded reason and actor, and a refusal of re-application from the same email.
- An approval chain with named actors and timestamps, and a refusal to raise an order against an unapproved request.
What it does not do
- Any request-for-proposal or request-for-information entity. Only requests for quotation exist.
- Definable evaluation criteria. The comparison factors are fixed at price, delivery time and a rating field nothing populates.
- Panel or multi-evaluator scoring of any kind.
- Sealed bids or a recorded opening moment.
- Framework agreements or standing offers — every order is priced from a fresh quotation.
Not ours, by choice
- Formal tender evaluation happens outside this product today, and we would rather say so than let a quotation comparison be mistaken for an evaluation.
- The controls around the decision — approval, matching, the payment gate — are real and do apply to a formally sourced purchase once the decision is made.
- Nothing here is Tanzanian. It is the difference between a quotation and a proposal; this is a market where one organisation routinely does both.
Our position
Use this for competitive quotations on defined baskets, which is most purchasing. Run formal tenders elsewhere and bring the award back in as a requisition and an order, so the controls and the audit trail after the decision still apply. If sealed bidding is a regular obligation rather than an occasional one, a specialist platform is probably the honest answer and we will say so on a call.
Four questions to separate a quotation tool from a tender platform
Can a submission be concealed until an opening date?
A good answer sounds like
Yes, with a recorded opening.
What it actually means
The one requirement that cannot be met by careful people using a simpler tool. Ask it first.
Can I define my own evaluation criteria?
A good answer sounds like
Yes, per tender, with weights.
What it actually means
Fixed criteria mean the tool decides what matters, which is the wrong way round for anything technical.
Can three people score independently?
A good answer sounds like
Yes, without seeing each other.
What it actually means
A shared spreadsheet is not independent scoring, and neither is one person entering everybody's marks.
Where does a supplier upload a proposal document?
A good answer sounds like
A portal, against the tender.
What it actually means
Email attachments are the default answer and they are also the reason nobody can reconstruct what was submitted.
Work out which of your processes are which
Most organisations run both kinds and treat them as one. Separating them is an afternoon's work and it tells you exactly which parts of your sourcing this product can carry.
Sort the processesFrequently asked questions
Can I use a request for quotation as a tender?
You can use it to collect prices, and it will do that well. What it will not give you is concealment before an opening, criteria you defined, or independent scores from more than one person — so it collects the submissions and does not make the process defensible.
What should I bring back into the system after an external tender?
The award, as a requisition and then an order against the winning supplier, with the evaluation attached as a document. That way the approval chain, the receipt matching and the payment gate all apply to the purchase even though the evaluation happened elsewhere.
Do you have framework agreements?
No. There is no standing-offer or contracted-rate entity, so every order is priced from a fresh quotation. Where you have negotiated a rate, it lives in your own records and is honoured by whoever remembers it — which is worth knowing before you rely on one.
