How many providers should you approach?

For those clients intent on creating a competitive short list of service providers, the next question is: how many potential service providers is it right to deal with? Anyone who has set up such a competitive situation will confirm that dealing with three or four providers on a preliminary basis still involves a great deal of work, and that the workload for the client is only marginally reduced if client adviser consultants are involved. Incidentally, if it is intended to use such consultants then it is advisable to involve them before any contact is made with providers, as they may have valuable information on the short-term circumstances affecting one or more of the providers.

In most circumstances, two to three short-listed providers will be sufficient for any client’s needs, but this will depend to a large extent on the quality of the refining process used to create the short list.