TMS RFP Management

SCT Advisory provides RFI and RFP support for Transportation Management System Selections that help our clients establish key requirements and business priorities, driving consensus and mindshare in program objectives and resource requirements while navigating the broad array of TMS providers in the marketplace considering cost, capability, and culture.    

Our Approach 

• Organizational Alignment 

  Interviews with key stakeholders are coupled with SCT-led education on the current Transportation Operational and Systems landscape with a focus on your critical business needs and opportunities for improvement.  Aligning on key objectives for the project through a high-level review, or a detailed Opportunity Assessment will allow SCT to build consensus and shared vision across the organization for TMS project objectives to ensure alignment during the requirements definition and vendor selection. 

• Requirement Definitions

  Detailed process walk-throughs through each area of the business and user persona allows SCT to align current state capabilities to best practices, identifying the list of critical capabilities needed from a new transportation solution as well as additional capabilities and considerations.  The output is a prioritized list of requirements to be used in an RFI/RFP, along with any near-term improvements that can be achieved prior to a more formal project. 

• RFI/Vendor Interviews (Optional)

  As SCT lays out a broad view of the provider landscape, it is often necessary to short list those providers that are more likely to participate in the proposed architecture.  This may include large TMS vendors, real time transportation visibility providers, smaller niche providers of adjacent solutions, freight auditors, or market analytics providers (amongst others).  Vendor identification and interviews allow our clients to hear the stories and prioritize activities in a way that will provide the needed insight to develop scope for the evaluation and program planning exercises. 

• RFP/Vendor Demonstrations

  Vendor demonstrations are a critical step in vetting potential partners and ensuring consensus on success factors and preferred vendors across the organization, which in turns delivers a critical success factor to the overall program.  SCT provides vendors with guidance on your organizational priorities and what we see as critical differentiators so you can get a 360 degree view of the options before you.  Briefing sessions following the demonstrations translate vendor claims into valid expectations, and roundtable discussions unveil any reservations from the team that can be addressed in future conversations by the vendors. 

• Scoping Workshops

  Following vendor demonstrations, as the preferred solution is materializing. Scoping workshops allow our customers to dig deeper into capabilities and setup requirements to more fully develop an appreciation for solution capabilities and the effort required to achieve them.  SCT facilitates workshops with 1-2 vendors to walk through the day in the life of a shipment (end to end given the surrounding system architecture), implementation methodology, roles and responsibilities, and critical success factors.