The Headline:

Cities and Counties can contract with me through the TIPS Purchasing Cooperative without an RFP process.

Let’s break that down:

• The TIPS Purchasing Cooperative allows government agencies to share competitively awarded contracts from the lead agency.

• Sanford Hess Consulting has a contract with TIPS through Contract #250106: https://www.tips-usa.com/vendorProfile.cfm?RecordID=B023B4AE07C7B3E1580EFE035DFD0E10

• Members of TIPS can use TIPS’ streamlined process to do business with me - and many other competitively procured contracts.

• Joining TIPS is free and easy for government agencies.

More about TIPS

• Frequently Asked Questions about TIPS are answered on their website: https://tips-usa.com/faq.cfm

• TIPS has a good two-page overview: https://www.tips-usa.com/assets/documents/docs/docs/MembershipBenefits.pdf

• TIPS has a smooth process for you to join: https://www.tips-usa.com/newmember.cfm

• More about the Lead Agency, the Region 8 Education Service Center for the State of Texas: https://www.tips-usa.com/leadagency.cfm

My Experience with Procurement Cooperatives - as a member (not a vendor)

As a City IT Director, we frequently used Cooperative agreements for easy and discounted purchases - without having to get multiple quotes or conduct an RFP. (You can do that because the lead agency has done that for you.) This works great for things like PCs, servers, and printer ink.

I had even more success blending models for complex procurements, two of which I wrote about:

• Buying a telephone system by writing a short specifications document and meeting to discuss it with three vendors who had available agreements: https://blog.tectonicspeed.com/2021/03/update-procurement-coup.html

• Buying a Network Security appliance through a short RFI: https://blog.tectonicspeed.com/2023/06/rfi-co-op-procurement-success.html

Contact me - let’s talk about it… https://www.sanfordhess.com/contact-me