Strategic Marketplace Initiative (SMI) Releases New Executive Briefing on the Impact of RFPs in the Healthcare Supply Chain

Scituate, MA (August 4, 2015):    The Strategic Marketplace Initiative (SMI^®) today released a new executive briefing for the healthcare supply chain industry entitled "RFP Activity:  A Contributor to Industry SG&A Costs."   This document is available, at no-charge, on the Tools section of the SMI website at www.smisupplychain.com and is designed to help increase awareness of the impact that RFPs contribute to industry SG&A costs as well as promote industry actions that could potentially lower SG&A costs for providers and suppliers.

This comprehensive document was developed by a team of SMI members, all healthcare supply chain executives, who set out to identify "improvement opportunities" that the industry could explore to lower the sales, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs in the healthcare industry.  While there are many behaviors and practices that contribute to high SG&A costs, the SMI Team identified the industry’s approach and utilization of the request for proposal (RFP) process, as an area worth exploring.   

This briefing is a culmination of research and survey data collected by the SMI team that shows how RFP volumes and the supplier costs to respond to these RFPs have increased over the past 12 months.  The briefing also includes information obtained from supplier interviews and how one supplier was able to reduce their RFP response time by 28%.

Dennis Orthman, SMI Senior Director said, "Through publication of this briefing, this SMI team hopes to increase overall industry awareness of the costs associated with RFP activities, while also encouraging both buyers and sellers to take actions that may reduce and control these costs better through more efficient practices."

This new SMI Executive Briefing entitled, "RFP Activity:  A Contributor to Industry SG&A Costs" is available for download, at no cost on the SMI website at: www.smisupplychain.com.  This resource, along with 29 other downloadable tools and solutions are available on the SMI website, and are designed to help industry professionals address real supply chain issues and challenges.