Vendor Evaluation Playbook Templates

Vendor evaluations often involve uneven source material: polished sales decks, dense RFP responses, demos, security questionnaires, pricing models, and stakeholder notes. AI can reduce review friction, but only if the process is source-disciplined.

The playbook should require side-by-side evidence, citations back to source material, explicit unknowns, and evaluator review before scores or recommendations are accepted.

1. Confirm requirements and scoring weights before analysis begins.
2. Summarize each vendor separately to reduce cross-contamination.
3. Map evidence to evaluation criteria.
4. Draft clarification questions for missing or ambiguous responses.
5. Prepare a human-reviewed decision brief with risks, tradeoffs, and open items.

• Do not upload confidential proposals unless the tool and data use are approved.
• Do not let AI invent scoring evidence or fill gaps without labeling assumptions.
• Keep vendor selection, negotiation, and award decisions with authorized people.

• Prompt sequence for proposal analysis, evidence extraction, vendor comparison, and decision brief drafting.
• Input checklist for RFP responses, pricing files, security questionnaires, stakeholder notes, and approved source materials.
• Vendor Evaluation Scorecard with scoring fields, evidence notes, assumptions, and reviewer sign-off.
• Risk flags for unsupported claims, vague implementation commitments, pricing traps, missing evidence, and weak accountability.
• RFP Clarification Tracker for vendor follow-up and internal owner questions.
• Human review checklist that keeps vendor selection, negotiation posture, and award decisions with authorized people.
• Reusable output format for vendor risk notes, executive decision briefs, and AI-use review logs.