CAGE Code
Best Value
Gov to English translation: The government is going to choose the bid that provides the best value to the government.
What is LPTA: Best value is how you and I decide whether to buy expensive things. For example, if we’re buying a car, price is a huge factor, but so is lifetime maintenance cost, reliability, quality, performance, and a whole lot of other factors. So when the government uses best value, they evaluate all aspects of all the bids to determine which one gives the best value to the government.
Why you care: There are a couple implications of Best Value
- Best value can be more favorable to premium product and service providers.
- Even under best value, the low price offer can win, but there is at least a chance that the government will decide that a high quality provider is worth the extra cost.
- Best value is a more subjective evaluation so it puts a premium on understanding what the customer will find valuable, making customer relationships and insight more important, favoring established insiders
- Because price is less important the profit margins on best value contracts tend to be more higher
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