Vendor Comparison Template

Vendors play an increasingly important role in all businesses today, providing essential services and goods. It is often cheaper and more efficient to use vendors than to maintain in-house staff for non-core services. While price is always an important selection criterion when evaluating vendor bids, it should not be the only reason for choosing a particular vendor. Vendor offers should be evaluated using a broad range of criteria such as price, quality, speed, performance history, and whether the vendor is a minority- or woman-owned business. That’s why many companies use Vendor Comparison Templates to make vendor selection easier and more effective.

The Vendor Comparison Template is an easily customizable template that you can use to rate vendors on a range of criteria that are important for the particular project or company.

Instructions for Using the Vendor Comparison Template

1.Identify the criteria you wish to use to compare vendor offers

These might include:

• Price
• Estimated time to complete the job
• Prior performance ratings
• Whether the vendor qualifies as a woman or minority-owned business

2.Identify the rating system you wish to use

You can choose from:

• Numerical rating from 1-10
• Grade rating from A-F
• Internal rating system used by your company

3.Customize the Vendor Comparison Template to fit the Information

Create columns or rows for each of the following:

• Vendor Name
• Contact Information
• Rating Criteria 1
• Rating Criterion 2, etc.
• Rating
• Insert one row for each Vendor you expect to rate
• Insert a row for tabulating your findings

4. Input the data

• As each vendor offer is received, enter the data into the template
• During the review process, enter ratings for all of the important criteria and then tabulate the results.
• Select the vendor with the best ratings.

Benefits of using a Vendor Comparison Template

Using a Vendor Comparison Template helps you make decisions driven by data, and not by impressions or emotion. In addition, Vendor Comparison Templates also allow you to keep track of your decisions and vendor history in case you wish to review past vendor experiences, or explain why you made your decision.

Download: Vendor Comparison Template