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Never one to rest on our laurels Rent IT is always pushing to open new markets or increase return in existing markets. Whilst we are well established in the Offshore Oil & Gas market, and indeed this was the original starting point for Rent IT 10 years ago, we have recently joined one of the industries leading procurement organisations First Point Assessment ( FPAL ) to further extend our reach. |
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FPAL was established in 1996 by a number of the major Oil & Gas operators who were looking for an easier method to assess and identify suppliers. With now over 70 purchasers and 2,500 suppliers in the scheme FPAL has grown considerably in the last 10 years. |
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In order to join the FPAL scheme Rent IT had to undergo a rigorous questionnaire, in effect a Pre Qualification document, covering all aspects of our operations. Areas covered included:- |
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Once approved by FPAL this information is released and made available to all purchasers within the First Point Assessment scheme. |
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Why is this so important to Rent IT? Well despite the FPAL scheme only have about 70 purchasers this reads like a "Who's who" of the Oil & Gas market, all of whom have multi million pound budgets at there disposal, just a few of these include:- |
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As well as a range of smaller companies and service providers. |
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First Point Assessment aims to make it easier for Rent IT to promote themselves to this market and offers a number of tools to help with this. |
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Having undertaken the questionnaire enables to Rent IT to immediately provide Pre Qualification information to all these organisations. This in itself is a major time saver not just for Rent IT but for the purchasers. Imagine the time to undertake 70 complete Pre Qualification documents! |
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FPAL also provides a means to present your products in an ordered manner allowing easy searching by the user. Each product or service is arranged and identified by a standard set of codes allowing users to quickly identify all potential suppliers of that product/service. This can be further refined perhaps by geographical location or even specific product brand to give a "short list" of potential suppliers who may be asked to bid. |
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Another useful tool for the purchaser is the FPAL Techweb. The Techweb system integrates pages from our existing Rent IT web site into a structured framework within Techweb, this allows all data from every supplier to be presented in a standardised manner to the purchaser. Thus a FPAL user can immediately access detailed specifications and pricing via Techweb with standardised navigation. The purchaser does not have to struggle to understand the navigation systems on the web sites of 2,500 FPAL suppliers but just a single framework. Of course the easier it is for the purchaser to access the information he requires the more likely he is to make that phone call. |
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Another tool for both purchaser and supplier is the FPAL performance feedback. This is a standardised set of documents that can be used to provide performance feedback between two parties in order to lay down how each performed on a particular contract. Feedback performance covers the areas:- |
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With marks from 1 (Poor) to 10 (Excellent) to be gained it is a useful tool for letting the supplier see where they have fallen down on product/service delivery or indeed where the client has perceived that a failure has occurred. |
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Once feedback is built up both purchaser & supplier can initiate a number of benchmarking exercises against direct competitors, similar type companies and on a direct product basis. This information is useful for the FPAL purchaser to determine supplier performance but also indicates to the FPAL supplier specific areas where improvement may be required. |
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First Point Assessment offer a number of other tools that in time Rent IT will no doubt be able to take advantage of. As First Point Assessment is part of the Achilles Group Rent IT may also be able to extend into other areas operated by Achilles. Presently the First Point assessment system covers the UK and Netherlands. However Achilles operates similar schemes in the utilities, transport, construction, pharmaceutical, public sector & mining industries. These are all market where rental of computers & peripherals will have applications. |
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If the operation of First Point Assessment is of interest to you please visit them at www.fpal.com |
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