The Rules of the Game: A Guide to Building Fair and Transparent RFPs

You’ve spent weeks crafting the perfect RFP, but is the process itself fair? When a supplier invests hundreds of hours into a bid, there is a fundamental expectation of respect and transparency. Too often, however, unclear rules, biased requirements, and a lack of communication can turn the process into a frustrating and unethical waste of time.

In the latest episode of Proc & Roll, hosts Natasha Gurevich and Conrad Smith are joined by a special guest—a real “proc star,” Ash Hall—to continue their deep dive into procurement ethics. Drawing on their combined 100 years of experience, they provide a practical guide for building a sourcing process founded on fairness, transparency, and respect.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

• Ethics in Small vs. Large Companies: The hosts discuss Ash’s observation that smaller, decentralized companies often have less stringent codes of conduct and may “fly under the radar” of regulations that larger, more established companies abide by.
• The Slippery Slope of Unethical Behavior: Conrad explains his theory that unethical habits often start with small, seemingly minor issues that become normalized over time, eventually leading to bigger problems.
• The Ten Commandments of a Fair RFP: The hosts outline the core principles of an ethical RFP, including the need for fair and transparent selection criteria shared upfront and unbiased requirements that don’t secretly favor one supplier.
• The Case for Respect: The conversation highlights that being respectful of a supplier’s time and effort is a core tenet of professional integrity, and knowingly wasting their time on a bid they can’t win is, in itself, an unethical act.

Watch now or read the transcript below.

Transcript: Proc-N-Roll | The Rules of the Game: A Guide to Building Fair and Transparent RFPs

Conrad: Hello everybody and welcome to Proc and Roll, your guide to practical procurement where we make procurement rock and roll. Today with us, we have Natasha, the Pro-CPO from IBM, McKesson, Salesforce, and Nike, and now founder and CEO of Candor Procurement. Sadly, we’re missing our good buddy, Zach, today; he’s buried under a pile of procurement work. In his place, we’re excited to welcome Ash Hall, former head of procurement from Lincoln Electric, Mercury Systems, and before that, leading teams at Meggitt, Danaher, and Intel, which is where I met him. Today we’re continuing our discussion about ethics and integrity, but first, I want to share something. We have a real “proc star” with us; Ash actually put together a song for an SAP project we worked on at Intel called “ICE SAP Baby” and played it on stage at an SAP conference.

Ash: That was fun. That was great.

Conrad: Ash, tell us a little bit about your journey into procurement.

Ash: My journey is quite interesting. I never knew that procurement was even a career; I always thought I was going to go to law school. I was a music and humanities major in college, but my dad, an attorney, inadvertently talked me out of law school. So last minute, I got an MBA. Intel was hiring MBAs to be senior buyers, so I got recruited and just fell in love with procurement. I started in indirects, was always intrigued by systems, and got back into strategic sourcing. I was recruited away by Danaher, where I was a director of indirect procurement and took on logistics operations. Danaher recognized how lopsided my career was and sent me on a rotation to lead supply chain for an aerospace business to get direct experience. Six months in, they sold that business to a UK company called Meggitt, and I stuck around there for a number of years. Later, I was recruited to Mercury Systems, which does work for the Department of Defense, so everything was highly regulated with DCMA guidelines and CPSR audits. My most recent position was at Lincoln Electric, where I spent the last two years building their first-ever centralized procurement function.

Conrad: With your experience in regulated environments, did you see a different focus on ethics and integrity when moving from a private company like Intel to one with government contracts?

Ash: That’s a really good question. I’ve got to tell you, Intel prided itself on its ethics; our code of conduct was quite strict. I remember they did a benchmark and found we were more strict than the rest of the industry, so there were things we couldn’t accept, like tickets to the Super Bowl. What I find is that the smaller and more decentralized a company is, the less stringent these codes of conduct are, often because they’ve acquired “mom and pop shops” that “didn’t know better” and were used to certain perks. Even at Mercury Systems, a lot of the smaller acquired companies flew under the radar of government regulations until they hit a certain threshold, and suddenly they had to abide by a whole new set of rules.

Natasha: I believe that people are inherently good and don’t want to do things that are unethical or illegal; often people just “don’t know better”. I see this with the younger generation that spent years at home during COVID without much external interaction, so they have less visibility to real-life instances where ethical questions arise. But also, our workforce today is very diversified, and we have to be mindful that what was acceptable 40 years ago might be considered derogatory or discriminatory today. I believe there should be common sense and empathy, not just a focus on legalities.

Ash: I absolutely agree with you that most people’s intentions are good, but sometimes those good intentions lead to a bad action. For example, when I was at Danaher, we were going through a small business audit with the government. I bought lunch for the auditor, and he said, “I can’t take that.” It was just some kebabs, but for him, it was against the regulation; he couldn’t accept anything, not even if it was just $5.

Conrad: That brings up the idea of a “slippery slope,” where behaviors that are a little across the line start to feel normal and become common practice. With that in mind, what are the rules you believe need to be in place for your team to manage a fair and equitable RFP?

Ash: You have to handle RFPs with integrity, because once you blow that, it can sink the reputation of your company. I’ve seen a bid where everybody refused to bid because the company had a history of always giving the business to the incumbent. My rules are: it has to be

fair to everybody, with the selection criteria defined upfront and shared with suppliers. The process must be

unbiased—you can’t bake the RFP with criteria only one supplier can meet—and it has to be transparent, with questions and answers shared with all bidders.

Natasha: I would not separate selecting a supplier from the process of selecting an employee; you have to be mindful of conscious and unconscious bias. My cornerstone is that you only extend an opportunity to suppliers who can

realistically deliver on it. I think it’s unethical to invite small or diverse suppliers just to “check the box” if you know in advance they cannot deliver, because you’re wasting their time and resources.

Conrad: I think another word for integrity here is just respect. As a supplier now, I can tell you these RFPs are often not well organized, not well put together, and hundreds of questions longer than they need to be. It’s disrespectful to make suppliers go through a “massive investment of energy” on a poorly constructed RFP if you don’t have a real intention of awarding them the business.

Natasha: Exactly. I’ve been a buyer for 25 years, and how many buyers who put together an RFP have never read the responses in full? How often have we just used cut and paste from a previous RFP, collecting information that was completely irrelevant? We procurement professionals have exhibited the same behavior that we don’t like when consulting companies do it to us.

Ash: I have a pet peeve with auctions. It’s surprising how many people I’ve met that after the auction is over, they go back to the winner and say, “OK, now what are you really going to give me?” Another issue is when a supplier who didn’t win comes back after the process with a crazy low deal. It’s a tough bind because it might be a better price, but it’s unfair to those that played by the rules.

Natasha: My pet peeve is when suppliers get a sense that they’ve won the business and then suddenly their “price just went up by 20%”. That is very unethical on the supplier side.

Conrad: All of this shows it’s so important to set up the rules upfront and to be open, fair, and transparent about how the process is going to work. If you start into a game without clear rules defined, it totally starts feeling unfair to both the buyer and the supplier when the rules change midstream.

Natasha: Maybe at some point we need to get very practical and start suggesting how our audience can replace the RFP, because we’ve been fuming about it but haven’t offered practical suggestions.

Conrad: I think that’s perfect. Let’s do a focus episode on the future beyond RFPs.

This transcript has been edited for clarity while maintaining all substantive content

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