Key Takeaways:
- Define shared decisions, departmental workflows, and system ownership before writing EAM RFP requirements.
- Specify shared data definitions and exception rules before asking vendors to demonstrate reporting capabilities.
- Test every finalist with identical buyer data, expected reports, and unresolved exceptions.
- Rerun reports after workflow changes to verify that operational updates remain reliable across retained systems.
- Separate mandatory acceptance criteria from weighted preferences so critical failures cannot be hidden by overall scores.
- Compare vendors using the same scope, implementation assumptions, integration requirements, and three-year operating costs.
- Make the final award depend on demonstrated evidence, clear ownership, and a funded operating model.
An enterprise asset management (EAM) RFP can produce hard-to-compare bids when facilities and IT combine requirements before the buying committee defines shared decisions. Procurement should agree on the required records, departmental workflows, and continuing ownership, then ask every finalist to demonstrate the same scenarios using representative buyer data.
“Replace asset spreadsheets” expresses a shared frustration. It leaves considerable room for disagreement about the purchase.
Facilities may need equipment availability, inspections, and maintenance history. IT may need device assignment, software context, and links to systems it intends to retain. Finance may need asset counts and replacement plans across both departments.
These are legitimate requirements. The RFP needs to show how they connect and which belong within the proposed system’s scope.
I’m EZO’s Senior Director of Sales. The evaluation method below should apply equally to EZO EAM and every other finalist.
Define the decisions before the EAM RFP requirements
Imagine a committee using “centralized asset management” as its principal requirement. A facilities-focused demo proves maintenance work can be managed. An IT-focused demo proves device assignments can be tracked. Neither demonstration necessarily answers finance’s question about replacement needs across sites.
Procurement can avoid that ambiguity by documenting three agreements before issuing the RFP. This builds on the broader evaluation principles in What EAM Demos Don’t Tell Procurement Teams, with a specific focus on the records facilities and IT must share.
The common decision. Name the question the organization needs to answer. For example: which assets belong to each site and cost center, and which qualify for next year’s replacement plan? Identify the fields, definitions, and replacement rule needed to produce the answer.
The departmental work. Have facilities and IT name their priority processes and the required outcomes. A facilities transfer might need to preserve maintenance history. An IT reassignment might need to update custody while retaining a connection to a device management system.
The purchase boundary. State what will be replaced, what will remain, and which system owns each shared field. A common reporting layer and a platform that runs both departments’ work require different implementations and budgets.
This agreement should leave room for specialist systems. Keeping an existing tool may be appropriate when it serves a necessary process. Its contribution to shared reporting must have a defined update path and an accountable owner.
Specify what a reliable shared record means
Consider a hypothetical Denver replacement-planning exercise. Facilities identifies the site as “DEN-01”; IT uses “Denver HQ.” Facilities records a responsible department in its owner field; IT records an employee. “Active” means in service to facilities and assigned to IT.
The committee needs to decide which distinctions to preserve and which fields to normalize. Custodian and responsible department, for example, may deserve separate fields rather than a forced common definition of “owner.”
Replacement planning also needs more than a normalized site name. Supply a planned replacement date or the inputs to an agreed rule, such as purchase date and lifecycle policy. A missing input should produce a visible exception. It should not silently remove an asset from the planning exercise.
The same discipline applies after rollout. If IT changes a device’s cost center or facilities moves equipment, establish where the change originates and how it reaches the consolidated report. The connection between trustworthy records and spending decisions is developed further in Bad IT Investments Often Start With Disconnected Asset Data.
Procurement should ask who approves shared definitions, who resolves conflicting updates, and who monitors records that have stopped updating. These responsibilities belong in the proposed operating model.
Test reporting with representative buyer data
Give each finalist the same small sample from both departments and two sites. Include conflicting location labels, missing custodians, incomplete replacement inputs, and identifiers that require investigation. Use sanitized records where necessary.
State the expected report and exception list before the test. Then ask the vendor to:
- Explain how source records are mapped to the agreed fields.
- Show how possible duplicates and conflicting identifiers are investigated.
- Produce the agreed asset count by site and cost center.
- Identify replacement candidates using the committee’s rule.
- Show records that cannot yet be classified and explain the corrective work.
A repeated identifier does not necessarily mean the same asset appears twice. Departments may have independent numbering conventions. The test should reveal how identity is established and who authorizes corrections.
Capture every manual preparation step, including work completed before the demo. Record whether the buyer, vendor, or implementation partner performs it, and whether it is a one-time migration task or a recurring administrative task.
The acceptance standard is a report the committee can reconcile to the supplied records, with unresolved exceptions accounted for.
Test departmental workflows and rerun the report
The second test should establish whether the proposed deployment keeps shared information reliable as operational work happens.
For an illustrative scenario, have facilities transfer equipment between the two sites and retrieve its maintenance history. Have IT reassign a device to another employee and cost center. Buyers should substitute their own priority processes before distributing the scenario, then keep the test consistent across finalists.
The relevant process owner should witness each workflow. Afterward, ask the vendor to regenerate the shared report and trace the changed records.
Where did the location change originate? Which system now holds the authoritative custodian? How does a cost center change reach reporting? What happens when a required update fails?
If the solution depends on another system, request a demonstrated handoff where feasible and document any untested dependency separately. Keep a description of a future integration distinct from a working connection shown during evaluation.
Record each step as included functionality, supported configuration, an additional module or integration, custom development, or manual work. Ask for the owner and cost of the work behind the proposed result.
Build an EAM RFP scorecard the committee can defend
Separate mandatory acceptance criteria from weighted preferences. If a priority workflow or required control fails, document that failure explicitly rather than allowing unrelated strengths to conceal it in the total score.
Agree on weights before demos and apply them to the same evidence from every finalist.
| Criterion | Evidence required | What procurement should record |
| Departmental requirements | Facilities and IT priority processes completed | Outcome, unresolved gaps, and process-owner assessment |
| Shared data and reporting | Reconciled reports before and after changes | Definitions, exceptions, traceability, and recurring cleanup |
| Integration fit | Update paths with retained systems | Authoritative fields, dependencies, failure handling, and support owner |
| Implementation and ownership | Migration and operating plan | Buyer, vendor, and partner responsibilities; training and administrator capacity |
| Three-year operating cost | Comparable commercial and staffing assumptions | Subscription, modules, services, integrations, administration, and growth |
Weights should reflect the actual purchase. A team retaining its IT management platform may place significant emphasis on reliable data exchange. A department replacing its maintenance system may prioritize work execution. The committee should be able to explain that choice before reviewing proposals.
Compare the cost of the proposed deployment
Ask finalists to price the same initial scope and the same expansion assumptions. Specify included sites, assets, users, required workflows, retained systems, and support expectations so commercial responses can be compared.
Include data preparation, migration, configuration, training, integration work, and any separately licensed capabilities. Also estimate the buyer’s ongoing administrator time: changing rules, resolving exceptions, maintaining reports, and supporting departmental users.
A manually reconciled report may be a reasonable choice if updates are infrequent and someone owns the task. A more connected deployment may justify additional cost when changes are frequent, and reporting needs are demanding. The decision depends on the work the organization can fund and sustain.
Document assumptions and exclusions in the award recommendation. If the proposed cost excludes a necessary handoff or relies on an unnamed internal administrator, the committee has an unresolved dependency.
Use comparable references to test the operating model
Procurement may begin by asking which vendors are winning EAM RFPs at similar enterprises. To use a win-rate claim, the committee would need a clear definition of the evaluated deals, their scope, the period covered, and the source of the figures.
For this purchase, ask finalists for references with comparable facilities and IT scope, site complexity, and retained systems. Ask those buyers what they deployed, which workflows remained elsewhere, how long data preparation took, and who now maintains reporting and exceptions.
References help test whether the proposed operating model is credible. They should complement the common vendor tests and documented commercial assumptions.
Make the award depend on evidence that survives rollout
Before recommending a finalist, procurement should be able to explain which shared decisions its records support, which priority workflows each department completed, and how updates remain reliable across retained systems.
The recommendation should also identify who owns unresolved exceptions and the cost of sustaining the deployment.
Award the contract when the committee can connect demonstrated fit to a funded operating model. The replacement for the spreadsheet problem is only useful if facilities, IT, and finance can keep making dependable decisions based on it.
