ACM 610 Project 4: PowerPoint Outline of Factors only
Cover each of the factors that you are assigning weight to in your COAs and how you chose its positioning in each of your team’s three proposed COAs.
Remember that the focus of evaluating sealed bids is the price, which includes our four factors:
cell phone costs per unit
data usage with a contract
data usage without a contract
recycling cost
Submit a draft of your PowerPoint outline with the voiceover to your instructor for feedback.
Welcome to Project 4: Cost Analysis and Contract Negotiation Strategy
You have prepared your acquisition strategy, and now there’s only one section left in your acquisition plan! As a contract manager, your goal is to bring the best value to your organization through a carefully planned and executed acquisition.
In this project, you will prepare the fourth and final part of the acquisition plan, which focuses on cost analysis and contract negotiation strategy. You will fill in the last section of your partially-complete acquisition plan template as you complete this project and finalize the full plan.
You will be responsible for two items to complete the acquisition plan: a cost analysis and a negotiation strategy.
The cost analysis will examine proposals from three cell phone vendors. The costs in consideration include
cell phone prices per unit,
data usage costs with and without a plan,
and recycling costs per unit.
The negotiation strategy covers the following:
An assessment of the specific situation and focus on the process
Every negotiation will be different, so it’s important to consider what your negotiation objective is, the different styles of negotiation, and the perspective the vendor will be coming from as well as your own.
The intent or purpose of the negotiation
What do you hope to accomplish for CTI in terms of contract terms, cost, and structure? Articulating your organization’s goals will help you reach an agreement with the vendor.
The duration and frequency of negotiation you are planning
Is it a one-time negotiation, or is it likely to need repeating after the initial period of performance? How long-term is the proposed contract?
How the results of your negotiation may enhance your acquisition strategy
The timeline
Consider how timing could affect your ability to meet the organizational need on time and on budget.
This project is designed to be completed in three weeks. Please read the following fictional scenario, which will provide the framework for the project. Then proceed to Step 1.
Scenario Overview
After a busy morning, you open your laptop to find several new messages. Among the emails is a note from Robyn Jones about a pressing matter. She would like your thoughts on the situation. She schedules a virtual meeting for later in the day.
Meeting
Virtual Meeting
Host: Robyn Jones, Direct of Sales and Marketing, Calum Tech International
Subject: Supplement Contract Vendor (Confidential)
[Robyn Jones speaking]
Good afternoon. I wanted to talk to you about a situation that arose while evaluating bids for a supplemental waste disposal contract to support your cell phone acquisition. One of the contract managers on the team has been advocating for a particular vendor to individual team members outside of official discussions. This has raised some red flags about the potential for undue influence, if this contract manager is taking advantage of the power associated with being on the team. I will follow up with more information, but for now I want to make sure you are aware that we are taking this seriously. Ethical matters like this need to be addressed carefully and as early in the process as possible, so we’ll be continuing to gather information and discuss.
Have a nice rest of your day.
[The virtual meeting ends.]
Check Your Evaluation Criteria
Before you submit your assignment, review the competencies below, which your instructor will use to evaluate your work. A good practice would be to use each competency as a self-check to confirm you have incorporated all of them. To view the complete grading rubric, click My Tools, select Assignments from the drop-down menu, and then click the project title.
1.2: Develop coherent paragraphs or points so that each is internally unified and so that each functions as part of the whole document or presentation.
1.8: Create clear oral messages.
2.1: Identify and clearly explain the issue, question, or problem under critical consideration.
4.1: Lead and/or participate in a diverse group to accomplish projects and assignments.
4.2: Demonstrate the ability to plan and execute a project, articulating clear objectives and goals for the team.
4.3: Contribute to team projects, assignments, or organizational goals as an engaged member of a team.
4.4: Demonstrate diversity and inclusiveness in a team setting.
5.6: Determine fair and reasonable prices when negotiating contracts.
Step 1: Audit Your Mastery of Concepts
As we begin the final part of this acquisition plan, reflect on what you have learned from the acquisition strategy process. Along with your experience in market research and other aspects of acquisition planning, this work will serve you well as you explore cost analysis and contract negotiation in this project.
Ask Yourself
Have you provided strategic objectives and a comprehensive background on your acquisition plan template?
Does your plan of action reflect thorough research?
Is your acquisition strategy complete?
After you’ve reviewed your previous work for this course, take the self-assessment to help deepen your critical thinking about key concepts from this course.
Check Your Knowledge
Choose the best answer to complete the statement.
Question 1
As defined in the FAR 2.101, is a continuous process for gathering data on product characteristics.
best practice
small business
market research
Question 2
What are the goals of contract management?
acting on behalf of the contract officer for the acquisition
supporting decisions with facts and persuasive writing
supporting the acquisition of goods and services by negotiating terms and conditions, documenting contractual agreements, monitoring contract performance, and concluding contracts
Question 3
What type of contract method should be used when the goal is to achieve the lowest price on the product?
simplified acquisition procedure
micro-purchase
sealed bidding
In the next step, you will work with your team to outline three potential courses of action for the CTI cell phone acquisition.
Step 2: Outline Course of Action With Your Team
Transcript
I was asked to consult and help out one of the nonprofit organizations here in the DC area. They were looking to update their website, and they had a proposal out there. The challenge was to agree on what’s important, what factors are important, and what they were looking for.
The nonprofit actually operates in multiple countries. So, they were looking at designers that had experience in multilingual websites, and the ability to get feedback from multiple countries, time zones, and all of that.
As with any nonprofit, budgets are an issue. We don’t have multimillion-dollar budgets to play with. Every time when we asked team members, “What are we looking for?” they’d say, “Well, we can’t pay a lot… We can’t pay a lot.”
“Okay, well, we can pay some, and let’s look at whatever we can get with whatever we can pay.”
The temptation is to go with the cheapest bidder. Maybe not in all organizations, but in most organizations. As we continued conversation, other factors started coming up. There are some recurring costs like storage, like maintenance… Maybe we need updates; how much will it cost us to do updates And there’s also nonmonetary value, those extras like how well the developer is able to develop websites in multiple languages that will be valid and efficient for multiple countries.
Often we would get, “You know, in my previous role, I worked with this company and they were good.” But you have to go through the motions and tell that person, “Well, not really… Thank you for your opinion, but not really. Not yet.” That’s the not yet portion. Let’s rank the people. And this ranking of factors is really important because that ensures that we treat every bidder fairly. You apply the same rules to them. You give everyone an equal chance to present their case and match what they can give you with what you need.
When we have so many issues with privacy, technology, breaches, cyber issues, social compliance… I think it puts so much pressure on people— on experts who are doing acquisitions for different organizations—because they not only have to look at the cost, but they have to look at all aspects of the product. Where was it made? How is it being recycled? This is a must, and it all comes down to the acquisition people to figure this out and have all these answers before the disaster hits. When you start thinking about what’s important and what factors to include, don’t only think about short-term, “This is what I need right now.” Think of other costs that are recurring. Do you need that developer to do something else for you? Maybe it’s some feature that in the future will become available like this request as they come in. So, think of recurring versus nonrecurring one-time costs. That’s important.
In this step, you will work as part of a team to outline three potential courses of action for the CTI cell phone acquisition. Refer back to your market research findings to help shape three viable solutions to include in your outline for the course of action. Your courses of action should be informed by the cost proposals that CTI has received from vendors and will help you move forward with your cost analysis and contract negotiation strategies later on.
Key Points
A course of action (COA) is typically a weighted summary of a way to proceed with an acquisition in term of the prioritization of factors for consideration. The factors, which can include a variety of key aspects of a proposal that influence the award decision, are focused on different aspects of cost in the case of CTI’s acquisition. To create a COA, assign these factors each a percentage, adding up to 100%. Weights are numerical values placed on factors based on their importance according to the team. When considering multiple COAs, team members should each give a score to each COA, ranking them with the highest score for the preferred option. The COA with the highest total when all team members’ scores are added is usually selected to pursue.
Pie chart in the shape of a smart phone, identifying 50% cell phones, 10% without data plan, 15% with data plan and 25% recycling costs.
Example of Percentages for Factors
Think about how the weights you choose for the cost factors relate to the goal of getting best value from the offeror to whom CTI awards the contract.
You receive an email from Senior Contract Manager Talia Norduff with more information for the team.
Email
From: Talia Norduff, Senior Contract Manager, Calum Tech International
To: You
Subject: PowerPoint Outline for Course of Action Options
I’ve been hearing great things from Robyn Jones about all your team’s work and that you’re gearing up for the negotiation process. Now that CTI has solicited bids from offerors and received cost proposals, your team will need to create a five-slide PowerPoint outline of your top three course of action options for the cell phone contract.
These courses of action should align with the acquisition objectives, market research, and acquisition strategies the team has planned. At Calum Tech, we pride ourselves on our record of minimal bid protests and we want to maintain that by carefully planning for a fair, deliberate process.
Outline three courses of action you recommend in PowerPoint slides with your team; I will follow up with some help on including narration. Your team’s PowerPoint slides should clearly identify three viable ways of weighting the given factors that support CTI’s use of the best value contract strategy. Be sure to divide responsibilities fairly so that each team member contributes equally to this document.
Thank you for your continued dedication to this project,
Talia
Talia Norduff, Senior Contract Manager; Calum Tech International; 112 Park Avenue, Edgewater, Maryland; Two, one, zero, three, seven; phone, eight, five, five, six, five, five, eight, six, eight, two; email, tnorduff at CTI.gov
Take Note
“An offer gives power of acceptance to another party, and it includes the agreement’s essential elements, which must be definite and certain. For example, if an offeror says to you, ‘I offer to sell you my scooter for $400,’ that offer is valid. It contains the price, the person to whom the offer is made, and the object of the offer (i.e., the scooter). It creates a power of acceptance in you, the offeree” (Lau & Johnson, 2012).
Once your team has outlined your courses of action in PowerPoint slides, continue to the next step to add narration.
References
Lau, T. & Johnson, L. (2012). Business and the legal and ethical environment
https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/business-and-the-legal-and-ethical-environment/s09-01-formation.html
Step 3: Record Your Team’s Voiceovers
In this step, your team will flesh out the PowerPoint outline drafted in the last step with verbal narration about how the team chose the three courses of action proposed. Each team member will record part of the voiceover, which will explain your team’s approach and how it relates to the best value contract strategy and the sealed bidding method.
As promised, you receive a follow-up memo from Talia with additional direction for the narration requirement.
Memo
From: Talia Norduff, Senior Contract Manager, Calum Tech International
To: You
Subject: Voiceover Narration for Presentation
Hello,
I wanted to provide your team with some guidance on your voiceover narration. We’d like you to divide the narration evenly among your team members so that you each have an opportunity to speak about a factor. You’ll want to cover each of the factors that you are assigning weight to in your COAs and how you chose its positioning in each of your three proposed COAs. As your team begins to analyze the cost proposals, remember that the focus of evaluating sealed bids is price, which includes our four factors:
cell phone costs per unit
data usage with a contract
data usage without a contract
recycling cost
As a team, revisit your prioritization of these factors in the weights you chose, and let us hear why you chose the approach you did with the goal of best value.
There are some challenges in group voiceovers for you to consider. How will you smoothly transition between members of your team to keep the presentation cohesive? Design the narration and the slides to complement each other rather than to repeat each other. Keep an accurate script of your team’s narrations to make your voiceover easy to record and edit as needed as well as to ensure it is accessible for everyone.
Thank you,
Talia
Talia Norduff, Senior Contract Manager; Calum Tech International; 112 Park Avenue, Edgewater, Maryland; Two, one, zero, three, seven; phone, eight, five, five, six, five, five, eight, six, eight, two; email, tnorduff at CTI.gov
Submit a draft of PowerPoint outline with the recorded voiceover to your instructor for feedback. This process and feedback will aid you as you finish your acquisition plan.
In the next step, you will revisit the ethical dilemma surrounding the supplemental waste disposal contract.
Project 4: PowerPoint Outline of Factors With Voiceover
Instructions
Cover each of the factors that you are assigning weight to in your COAs and how you chose its positioning in each of your team’s three proposed COAs.
Remember that the focus of evaluating sealed bids is the price, which includes our four factors:
cell phone costs per unit
data usage with a contract
data usage without a contract
recycling cost
Submit a draft of your PowerPoint outline with the voiceover to your instructor for feedback.