How to evaluate and select vendors

TransparentChoice Software Tutorial

From this presentation you will learn how to use TransparentChoice software to evaluate and select vendors. See sample results below…

The first thing you need to do is to create a project. In order to do that you need to be logged in. If you don’t have an account yet – you can create it here.

Vendor selection process

1. Create a project.

2. Add vendors.

3. Define criteria.

4. Evaluate.

5. Display results.

Click here to create a project…

Now it is time to add vendors as “Alternatives”. “Alternatives” are things that will be evaluated in your decision project e.g. vendors, technologies, projects or candidates. So in this project Alternative = Vendor There are 3 ways to add alternatives: • Manual one-by-one. • Collect online – publish a form and

invite other people to submit proposals.

• Import – from text or a spreadsheet file.

Vendor selection process

1. Create a project.

2. Add vendors.

3. Define criteria.

4. Evaluate.

5. Display results.

Use this button to add vendors manually…

This option allows you to publish a web-form with which people in your organization can nominate vendors. It will be explained in

another tutorial.

In this tutorial we will show you how to import

vendors…

You may use “Quick” import and simply paste the list of vendors

(each in a new line).

or import vendors from a spreadsheet file.

This is a spreadsheet that we will use.

Requirements for the spreadsheet

• The file must be saved in xlsx or xls format.

• Data for the import must be in the first sheet.

• The first row must contain headers (names of imported attributes).

• Headers must be unique.

• One of the columns must be populated with alternatives’ names. Other columns are optional.

• Names of alternatives must be unique.

The first column contains the names of vendors. “Name” is the

only column (attribute) that is required for the import.

Name (required) and Description (optional) are default attributes for each alternative (vendor) you're importing. You can add other attributes (a fancy name for any data you want to attach to a alternative you're evaluating) such as cost, risk, etc.

Click here and upload your file…

“Price” is not a default attribute so if you want

to import it, you need to create a new attribute…

Leave the default settings. “Attributes” will be explained

in another tutorial…

Click here to preview the imported data…

Click “Import” to confirm.

Vendors are added to your project as “Alternatives”.

If you want to edit a vendor…

Defining criteria is about: • Building the hierarchy of criteria. • Setting the measurement option

for each criterion. There are 3 measurement options: • Pairwise comparisons (default). • Custom scale – define your own

scale for a criterion. • Attribute – use imported data for

the evaluation.

Vendor selection process

1. Create a project.

2. Add vendors.

3. Define criteria.

4. Evaluate.

5. Display results.

Go to “Criteria” tab…

Select the best vendor

Financial

Cash flow

Competitive pricing

Ownership structure

Location Credibility

Reference clients

Reputation

Partners

Quality of deliverables

Support

Cost

Availability

Bottom-level criteria You will use these criteria to directly "measure" the alternatives (vendors). You will typically use a scale or attributes to do this.

Upper-level criteria These criteria are made up of sub-criteria. You will typically use pairwise comparison to work out the relative importance of the sub-criteria

This is the criteria hierarchy that we will use…

Select the best vendor

Financial

Cash flow

Competitive pricing

Ownership structure

Location Credibility

Reference clients

Reputation

Partners

Quality of deliverables

Support

Cost

Availability

Bottom-level criteria You will use these criteria to directly "measure" the alternatives (vendors). You will typically use a scale or attributes to do this.

Upper-level criteria These criteria are made up of sub-criteria. You will typically use pairwise comparison to work out the relative importance of the sub-criteria

Please notice the difference between upper and bottom-

level criteria.

Click here to add criteria…

By default, criteria have “Pair-wise comparisons” assigned. We will leave

this for upper-level criteria (sub-criteria will be prioritized with pair-

wise comparisons).

Click edit to change the measurement

option…

This is where you can change it…

We switch to “scale” for all bottom-level criteria (vendors will be scored

with scales).

The goal of evaluation step is to: - establish the relative importance

of criteria, - score vendors in the context of

bottom-level criteria. You do this by filling auto-generated (based on criteria settings) survey. If you evaluate with your team you need to: - collect surveys from all members, - build a consensus.

Vendor selection process

1. Create a project.

2. Add vendors.

3. Define criteria.

4. Evaluate.

5. Display results.

Software generates a survey for each evaluator (member

of your team).

The list of surveys will show up here. If you're working on your own, you don't need to

add any more evaluators.

Here you define the type of the judgments in survey.

Here you build consensus when making group decisions. It will be explained in another

tutorial.

Click here to access the survey…

This is an exemplary pair-wise comparison that

evaluator needs to make.

and vendor evaluation with a scale.

You can display the results for the whole group and for each member. There are 4 types of results: - Ranking - Criteria weights - Sensitivity analysis - Score / cost chart

Vendor selection process

1. Create a project.

2. Add vendors.

3. Define criteria.

4. Evaluate.

5. Display results.

1. Choose data source (in this project we have only one evaluator).

2. Click on “Show results”. 3. Choose the results to

display.

• This is the ranking of vendors. Vendor 4 is the lead.

• You can display the chart data in a table.

• Names and priorities of criteria are below the chart.

• This is the score / price chart. • The bigger circle, the greater value for

money. • Vendor 4 seems to be the best choice. • You need to import “price” as an

“attribute” to display this chart.

Criteria priorities. On this chart we display only the bottom-level criteria. You can change it.

• Sensitivity analysis – see how ranking changes when criteria priorities change.

• Vendor 4 is “at the top” even if the weight of criterion changes.

Next steps

• See our other tutorials

• Get the free trial of TransparentChoice software

• Schedule a live demo of TransparentChoice software

• Request our support for your pilot project