Please find below a list of answers to queries from bidders on the restricted list to which RFP TT-306-664-721-6 has been sent:
Q: Is the application a form of predictive analytics?
A: No. Predictive Analytics are based on data concerning past events (referred to in my letter as "statistical extrapolation"). The application is based on data concerning future events, but which are already available, and verified.
Q: Does the application only apply to customers involved in international trade?
A: No. The application covers both international and national trade, based on the public and private tenders published in each country.
The interest of the application is that it enables any company to foresee the future value of trade in their market sector, whether in their own country or in any other.
The value of the application is that includes both international and national trade, i.e. trade in a given market sector, in a given country/region/location, whether with companies only in that country/region/location, or with companies in any other country/region/location.
Q: Is the application a tender monitoring or procurement service?
A: No. The purpose of the application is not to provide tender monitoring or procurement services; it is simply to make it possible for a company, no matter where they are located, whether they are involved in international trade or not, to know the future value of trade in their specific market sector, or in any other – and as such would be an invaluable asset in any ERP system.
Q: What is the use of the information?
A: The key word in an ERP system is planning – which necessarily means the future. The application makes their future known to users, weeks, months and even years in advance.
The information would be useful and valuable to existing and future customers for a number of reasons, including (but not limited to) the following:
- Business intelligence / knowledge about competitors: the contracts they have obtained, who from, how, where, for how much, and why; this information is not necessarily provided to the media unless the contracts are of strategic value.
- Where and when to source materials or services: a future drop in the trade value of the customer's market sector would allow them to force prices down.
- Comparison of the future trade value of suppliers in order to select the most appropriate supplier.
- Where and when to target new employees and talent; a prolonged future drop in trade would allow them to offer lower salaries, or to detect a surplus of manpower.
- Finding related or alternative market sectors: in the event of a prolonged future drop in trade in their existing market sector, users could identify related or alternative market sectors in which to invest.
- Where and when to market their products: a future rise in the trade value of the customer's market sector would allow them to target the region or country in question, and at the appropriate time.
- Where and when to invest, or not to ivnest.
Q: What is the added value?
A: If the service is not included in the bouquet of services in your existing ERP system, but is marketed as stand-alone service:
- All of your existing customers would want the information, if only for the reasons outlined above.
- A very wide range of new customers would want the information, including those not interested in an ERP system. A list of potential customers is provided in the specification.
On this basis, the application could more than double your current sales turnover, and as indicated in the specification, once the application is developed, the EBITDA would be very high, since the information is automatically re-generated.
Finally, the application does not simply aggregate tender values: obtaining the requisite data is more complicated, and includes accounting rules so that the trade values are accurate, and reliable.
The information on how to do this is provided in the specification.
Q: Who has received the RFP?
A: The RFP has been sent to a restricted list of nine (9) global competitors in the ERP software market.
