Once the contract is awarded, all suppliers that submitted proposals or offers are entitled to feedback, upon request, from the CO or his or her designated representative, with the assistance and participation of the members of the proposal evaluation team and purchase/SCM team. Frequently, this delivery of feedback is referred to as “debriefing.”
Unsuccessful suppliers should be debriefed upon request received by the CO within 3 days of the supplier’s receipt of the award notification. When practicable, untimely briefing requests received beyond that time should be honored. To the maximum extent practicable, any debriefing should occur within 5 days of the receipt of the unsuccessful supplier’s written request, because failing to debrief in a timely manner extends the period within which the supplier can lodge a business disagreement concerning the award.
It is as important to understand why a proposal was selected for award as it is to understand why a proposal was not. Therefore, feedback, in general, is intended to:
The CO or a designee should explain the rationale for contract award, and, if necessary, use the delivery of feedback as a means of educating suppliers on the way the Postal Service conducts its purchases. A supplier may be informed of its proposal’s relative strengths and weaknesses determined during the evaluation and, if proposals were ranked, its ranking. A supplier may also be informed of the rating its proposal earned; however, no point-by-point comparisons with other proposals or further breakdown of other evaluated scores may be made. In no event shall an offeror’s business or financial information that is privileged or confidential, including but not limited to, cost breakdowns of direct and indirect costs (such as labor rates, material and handling costs, profit, overhead rates, subcontracting costs, etc.), trade secrets, restricted data, manufacturing processes and techniques, or similar information be disclosed to any other offeror.
For the benefit of the Postal Service, this feedback should aim to accomplish the following:
