ABSTRACT
Having arrived at the short list, it remains now formally to notify the successful candidates in writing, inviting them individually to tender for delivery of the service and propose inaugural meetings to initiate the process. The purpose of the inaugural meeting is formally to hand over the
draft contract along with the SOR and all relevant schedules. At this stage, however, all this material remains little more than an aspiration and the basis for detailed discussion until such time as an agreed position can be arrived at that is mutually acceptable to the company and the winning supplier. To that end, each supplier should be presented with a proposed timetable of meetings for clarifying and negotiating the contract and the various service and user requirements. It is also important at this juncture to set the deadline date for receipt of suppliers’ responses and to emphasize the importance of conforming to the required structure for responses. The project is about to enter its most prolonged, frustrating and challenging phase, comprising two difficult and concurrent strands of activity: negotiating the agreement and evaluating the suppliers’ responses to the SOR.
