Tender Evaluation for the Telecommunication Industry using the Analytic Network Process

In the past few decades, tender evaluation has consistently dominated most of organizations\u27 top strategic priorities. Additionally, the field of tender evaluation has generated a vast amount of research efforts, wherein most of these efforts center on methods enabling consideration of all affecting criteria together to make an appropriate decision. Despite the great deal of advances in the methods of tender evaluation based on technical view, there still lacks comprehensive and organizational-driven decision making tools to support organizations during the crucial task of choosing a suitable tender that best meets their business and technical needs.;Tender evaluation has a strategic role in the success of large enterprises in the telecommunication market. It is a complex, multi-person, multi-criteria process. The criteria used to evaluate a tender contain quantitative which are easy to measure and qualitative attributes which most available methods fail to deal with them. In this study, a model is developed using Analytic Network Process (ANP) in a Benefit, Opportunity, Cost, and Risk (BOCR).;The essence of this approach is decomposition of a complex problem into a hierarchy with objective at the top of the hierarchy, criteria and sub-criteria at levels and sub-levels of the hierarchy, respectively, and decision alternatives at the bottom of the hierarchy. Factors at given hierarchy level are compared in pairs to assess their relative preference with respect to each of the factors at the next upper level. These can support complex problems that would be otherwise difficult to handle. This method is capable of handling discrete criteria of both quantitative and qualitative in nature and provides complete ordering of the alternatives.;The primary feature of this methodology is its ability to simultaneously consider all types of criteria for tender evaluation in telecommunication companies. The criteria defined for the model using Delphi method from experts in the field and are general to all telecommunication tenders. The developed model is used in an empirical study on an ongoing tender in a mobile telecom service provider company to analyze the tenderers\u27 data and evaluate and rank them. The result of this model is compared to the company\u27s evaluation result which is obtained from traditional Texas Instruments Matrix method. The proposed model shows the ranking of the tenderers in different BOCR merits separately as local priorities to help the evaluators make a more efficient decision. A sensitivity analysis on the empirical study was conducted to show how the rankings of the tenderers are changing by changing the weights of the BOCR merits.;The research work presented here may be used by telecommunication professionals and managers to aid in making appropriate decisions on tender evaluation process and determinate strategies for reducing the risk of this process