Contractor Questionnaires Best Practices

The Critical Few

One interpretation of Pareto’s Law says that most of the value (80%) in any system originate from a critical few (20%) inputs. Or put another way, focus on the critical few inputs that produce most of the results you are looking for.

Contractor Databases and the Critical 20%

The critical few phenomena proves true for contractor management systems. More than fifteen years of database operations indicate that more than 60% of purchaser page views of contractor questionnaires are in only three subject-matter areas.

This means that purchasers typically use a very small data set when prequalifying or selecting contractors (presuming price and technical capability are even). Purchasers generally prequalify contractors on these three data points:

Business Considerations

Contractors have limited resources and motivation to complete lengthy questionnaires or get encumbered by a complex technology at the first contact stage of a business relationship. Further, 80% of general contractor survey respondents cite lack of resources and the imposition of costs on their subcontractors as the major reason for maintaining a manual prequalification process. Einstein is credited with the phrase ’Everything should be made a simple as possible, but not simpler’. Combining the Law of the Critical Few with Einstein’s simplicity message is good guidance for contractor questionnaire content.