Students will define the needs for the product or service they selected for this project (Wedding Dresses). Many procurement or outsourcing projects fail when defined needs or expectations are unclear. Additionally, some suppliers or vendors take advantage of potential clients or customers when they are unclear in defining their needs. This can affect long-term relationships and yield costly impact on these projects. Students need to carefully apply the lessons to their selected project critically thinking about these concepts to their situation.

This definition will be the beginning of a mini-business case students will be developing over this course as to how best procure or outsource the selected product or service. For many companies, this definition is placed into a Request For Quote (RFQ) or Request For Proposal (RFP) that is sent out to solicit bids from potential suppliers or vendors (some send Request For Information (RFI) similarly). Recognize Assignment 1 requires students to develop a mini-RFQ or RFP for the Week 2 selected project this week (6 pages max. plus cover page and bibliography). Students should research existing RFQ or RFP’s to support thoughts and ideas for this assignment. As required in academic submissions, statements used that are not common knowledge taken from another source must clearly give credit to that source of your ideas in your writing (i.e. citations). As well as everything cited in your writing should be included in a bibliography listing of references used. Otherwise, students are violating Academic Honesty with plagiarism issues that can lead to a zero (see syllabus addendum). Please see the Course Materials for further resources on Doing Research and Using APA for this submission.

Students should assume they are working for the company currently making the product or service they selected and that company would like to consider purchasing or outsourcing that product or service. Students should make sure their RFQ or RFP needs are clearly, thoroughly, and concisely defined to avoid potential issues or risks that may occur relative to their selected products or service (i.e. assumptions about supplier’s painting drove many of the children toy recalls regarding lead paint discussed in the supplemental materials). Be sure to clearly define appropriate expectations relative to the product or service selected for a potential supplier and consider the industry the company is in to structure a realistic business scenario.

Students working with a partner should split and manage their workload accordingly (up to students to manage themselves, make a team charter clearly defining who is doing what by when and further agreements you need to commit to in order to effectively work together). All confirmed partners in the Week 2 project selection should submit one consolidated paper (both partners submit the same paper). If the partnership is not working than students should notify the instructor and plan to work alone on their selected project.

The submission for this assignment should include (at a minimum):  

Cover page (1 page) – develop either an introductory letter with company letterhead announcing your RFQ or RFP or make a cover page showing company logo and product/service selection (i.e. professional business report cover, not APA style boring).

Statement of Purpose – explain why you are pursuing this procurement or outsourcing project, identify measurable objectives for the project, as well as highlight supporting requirements for the product/service selected. Students may want to refer to VA or FAST information (Week 2) for some ideas defining supporting requirements for their product/service selection. Remember the RFQ or RFP is sent to suppliers or vendors to fulfill your procurement or outsourcing project needs (this is not a marketing project where you are selling your selected product or service).

Background Information – create a brief summary of the organization to connect to the product/service selected. This may require some creativity depending on your selection. Students should research some companies providing a similar product/service. Students should further research the industry and/or market that their product/service is used. This will assist students in writing this portion of the definition realistically. Please see the Course Materials Doing Research and Using APA for how to find company and industry reports in the library (which often cost money outside the library).

Scope of Work – define the nature of project, roles and responsibilities expected, and performance standards required from suppliers or vendors for your project.

Schedule – develop a timeline as to when bids should be submitted and outline the general award process that will be followed for this procurement or outsourcing project.

Bibliography – list all resources used to develop this assignment (everything on this list should have citations within your writing where used, per APA, direct quotes and paraphrased words that are not general or common knowledge should always be cited or it is plagiarism). Citations and references to credible sources should be in APA format (see Course Materials Doing Research and Using APA for further in-text citation and reference format help).