Most of the issues you bring up should be eliminated by getting quotes from
a reputable Vendor who is up front about their costs and would not try to
sneak extra pricing into their quote. Get recommendations from your various
industry groups, and don't necessarily go for the lowest price.
I apologize for making this more complicated but your recommendation of
putting together a scenario to which the vendor applies the pricing may
still not give you a true picture. Some vendors charge various minimums for
retrievals, deliveries, refiles, etc. so in order to get a true picture you
will need to specify how many items are being requested on each order. If
one vendor charges a minimum of 2 items for delivery and another charges a
minimum of 8 items, there will be a large difference in the resulting
charges.
Steve Westerfield
Benson Records Management
402-571-3305 ext 117
[log in to unmask]
www.BensonRecordsManagement.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Pilar McAdam
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 4:49 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Off-site storage fees
I'd like to warn those negotiating new or follow-on contracts to be very
watchful of all pricing breakdowns at ALL levels within the proposal
each and every time the vendor comes back with a revision.
In my experience, a vendor may offer to reduce a service cost during
negotiations. However, in subsequent reviews of the entire pricing
structure, other changes -- unrequested and unmentioned -- may appear,
and these changes may result in the vendor gaining increased income to
offset the agreed-to reductions.
Examples:
- Reduction in standard pick-up/delivery fees, but addition of a
per-item fee tacked on for every transaction
- Reduced monthly storage fees, but addition of new administrative
charges
- Upon contract renewal, no increase in storage or basic delivery
charges, but standard next-day delivery is being changed to standard
2-day delivery
I guess what I'm saying is that companies are getting very creative in
finding ways to end up getting the same income from a contract, even if
they restructure the sources of that income.
My recommendation would be to develop a standard realistic scenario for
your company/organization that includes a representative spectrum of
typical services over a timeframe, say 3 months. It might look
something like:
- starting inventory in storage: 28,000 boxes
- box new adds: 750
- box permanent removals: 600
- box destructions: 150
- standard delivery requests: 1,200
- RUSH delivery requests: 75
- after-hours delivery requests: 30
- standard pick-up requests: 60
- etc., depending on the types of services in your contract
Then, using the pricing provided in your quote, extrapolate out the
total cost for the timeframe.
This approach helped us greatly during a recent evaluation of competing
proposals and helped us to recognize when something in the proposal
changed from one version to the next (particularly when the vendor
hadn't highlighted that particular change).
Pilar C. McAdam, CRM
[log in to unmask]
Los Angeles, CA
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