States
, constructing and dismantling lighting and audio systems for large venues. Our company
consists of ten employees. Five
site workers
travel to the venues,
whi
le
five
office workers
schedule the work and manage the company.
We intend to increase our site workers to twenty employees, and manage four concerts
simultaneously. This increase in business will create scheduling and communications challenges
that we ar
e not set up to handle with our existing technology. Our
current
office technology
cannot support that level of coordination. We are in need of a technology upgrade. In this RFQ,
we are seeking a single
sour
ce technology upgrade solution.
Section I
: Object
ives
Our overriding objective is to be able to coordinate the operations of four concerts
simultaneously. The home office must be able to manage our remote teams. To accomplish this,
we must fulfill three business technology objectives.
Our first objective is to be able to coordinate different schedules and services
simultaneously. Our office workers need a common platform from which to coordinate actions.
Our office workers must be able to work concurrently on the same projects.
Our sec
ond objective is to be able to communicate remotely with each site worker.
We
need a mobile communications system that will allow instantaneous communications. We also
need to transmit data, such as contracts and schedules, from our office computing system
to our
remote employees.
RFQ for
XYZ Corporation
3
Our third objective is
to increase our efficiencies by automating certain business
processes. Our office staff must be able to coordinate four
concerts simultaneously. To the
greatest extent possible, we need a computing system t
hat will manage the hand
off of daily
work from department to department.
Section II
: Technologies
To the best of our knowledge, we are seeking the technologies identified below.
However, if a better solution exists, we certainly encourage alternate recom
mendations.
In
addition to our technology requirements identified, we are requesting installation services and a
minimum of two years’ customer support. The customer support may be serviced by a third
party.
Technologies for
Objective 1
Our first
objectiv
e is to be able to
coordinate
multiple services and schedules
simultaneously
from our office
. We believe a centralized network will
provide this solution. We
are seeking a
network
server
with at least ten thin
client nodes.
The server
and nodes will operate
within
a single office. We a
ssume
Microsoft Server
foundation
software
, or similar
management
software
,
will supervise the network
.
To be able to work concurrently, we are seeking an Enterprise Resource System (ERP).
The ERP
must al
low employees to work together, both inside and outside of the office. We are
seeking a platform with functionality similar to Microsoft Dynamics ERP.
Our network must remain secure from data theft and intrusion. Therefore, we are seeking
an enterprise
le
vel antivirus
protection
and
a
firewall. The security software must be compatible
with the ERP system and network.
It must: (1) stop intrusio
n, (2) scan and delete viruses,
(3)
remove spam from emails
, and (4) encrypt personal and stored data
.
We are seeki
ng functionality
similar to the Symantec Endpoint Protection software.
RFQ for
XYZ Corporation
4
Technologies for
Objectiv
e 2
We need a mobile communications system that will allow instantaneous co
mmunication
with each employee in the field.
We are seeking a smart phone solution.
The phones should have
push
to
talk, or
a
similar instantaneous communication feature. The phones must be able to send
and receive Microsoft
and Adobe
formatted documents.
We prefer ruggedized phones, able to
withstand a drop from ten feet.
In addition, w
e are seeking productivity software
that
will allow office workers to text
remote phones from a desktop setting.
We prefer the functionality inherent in the Ez Texting
software, or similar.
Technologies for
Objective 3
Finally, our office computing system will need to automate certain tasks that are currently
performed manually. Specifically, we are seeking a project
based software that will move
individual contract data
from sales, through operations, into accounts rece
ivable, and finally
finance. The software must retain all associated data and history. It must prompt employees, and
hand
off responsibilities. It must provide metrics to track the effectiveness and speed at which
employees are performing their work.
Here
again, we believe Microsoft Dynamics will provide the solution. Modules within the
ERP software already perform the capabilities required.
The SL and GP modules link processes
together, and automate project wo
rkflow across the organization (Wikipedia, 201
7). We seek
productivity software with functionality as good as, or better than
,
Microsoft Dynamics.
Section III: Selection Criteria
In general, we are seeking middle
of
the
road quality. We are a small business. We do
not need extraneous features,
or the
fastest processing speeds. However, we do not wish to be
RFQ for
XYZ Corporation
5
encumbered by the system failures that are a
ssociated with cheaper products
.
We are willing to
pay for a mid
level of quality; however, cost will always be a factor.
We will send this RFQ to at lea
st
five
vendo
rs. When we have received a suitable number
of responses, our Selection Committee will evaluate the bids. We will select the winning bid
based on the following prioritized criteria:
Functionality equivalent to the
requirements identified in Se
ction II.
Total delivery and installation costs.
Additional functionality that adds value to our objectives.
Part II: Make an Informed Purchasing Decision
Section IV:
Comparison
In this section, you will choose one of the essential or non
essential
technologies that your
business requires, and you will compare two technology products that offer the specific
services that you need.
Calculate either a TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) or ROI (Return
on Investment) for two competing technology products and
select the product that you think
provides the best value in terms of costs and benefits.
You would not normally include the TCO or ROI calculations in an RFQ that you send out
to vendors. This is information that you would use internally to help make you
r decision
on which technology product to purchase.
However, it is perfectly fine to estimate the costs
of your purchase and to include this in your RFQ. This can establish cost expectations with
your prospective vendors and protect against potential price
gouging.
In this
section
, we will evaluate the TCO of enterprise
cyber security software. We will
compare
the
Symantec
Endpoint Protec
tion 14, with Avast for Business Premium Endpoint
Security. Both software fulfill the requirements identified in Section
II.
Table 1 illustrates the
TCO
analysis
(Symantec, 2017; Avast, 2017):
RFQ for
XYZ Corporation
6
Table
1
. TCO Comparison of Security Software
Symantec
Avast
Purchase price
$508 per year
for
25 accounts
$400 per year
for
10 accounts
Installation
Included
in
support
Included in
support
Support
1 year free
.
$425
(
2 year
s)
for
10 accounts
$600 per year
for
9 accounts
Total for 3
years
$2,374
$3,000
Security software products are reengineered every few years. Therefore, in the analysis
above we are assumin
g a total lifetime of three years for each product. At that time, another
version of software will replace the software identified above.
For the three years investigated,
Symantec appears to
be the better deal
–
assuming
functionality
is one
to
one
.
However, we are analyzing the total cost of ownership for the lifetime of security in our
network. Our analysis must extend to the lifetime of the network itself. We assume our network
will operate seven years before replacement. If security software price
s remain the same, we
estimate a seven
year TCO of $6,100 for the Symantec software (not including present value
calculations). We estimate a seven
year TCO of $7,000 for the Avast software (not including
present value calculations).
Considering the total
lifetime costs for security on our network, the
Symantec Endpoint Protection 14 is the better deal.
RFQ for
XYZ Corporation
7
References
Avast
. (2017). [website]. Retrieved from:
https://www.avast.com/business
Symantec
. (2017).
[website]. Retrieved from:
http://buy.symantec.com/estore/clp/productdetails/pk/endpoint
protection
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Corporations
. (2
01
7).
[website]
. Retriev
ed from:
https://www.microsoft.com/en
us/dynamics365/operations
