G-Cloud buyers are able to evaluate their short-listed service offerings in two ways:
- Most economically advantageous tender (MEAT) criteria
- Lowest price (if they are comparable services)
The MEAT approach is a balance between quality and cost and is often the buyer’s preferred evaluation model. During a MEAT evaluation, buyers decide which relative attributes and weightings will apply to their procurement. Buyers will then evaluate services against these elements.
Common considerations
Technical merit
Ability to meet specific technical requirements and open standards including ability to integrate with existing technology
Functional fit
As an off-the-shelf commodity service without bespoke elements, you must decide which service best meets your needs
Whole life cost
Consideration of upfront price plus potential cost of training, on-boarding, off-boarding and ongoing maintenance costs
So for example, if you were procuring a customer relationship management (CRM) system you may choose to evaluate on criteria such as:
- on-boarding and configuration
- data migration
- user training
- ongoing support from a helpdesk
- ability to provide statistical analysis
After the evaluation
When the evaluation has taken place, the quality and price scores are converted into percentages in accordance with the pre-set weightings. These are then added together for each service. Award the contract to the service which receives the highest percentage score.
Buyers must remember that the overall selection and evaluation process must be auditable, fair and transparent.
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