RFP - Economic Study on the Impact of Conversion of Serbia to Digital TV
International Research and Exchanges Board – IREX
SERBIA MEDIA ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL
ECONOMIC STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF CONVERSION OF SERBIA TO DIGITAL TV
BACKGROUND
USAID’s SERBIA MEDIA ASSISTANCE PROGRAM is a four year initiative that is being implemented by International Research and Exchanges Board - IREX. The project main goal is to support media in Serbia. The project began on October 1, 2008.
REQUIRED SERVICES:
Serbia, Along with other countries in Europe, is required to convert terrestrial TV broadcasting from analogue to digital by June, 2015. Serbia wishes to complete this conversion sooner, by April 2012 in order to convert to digital transmission at the same time as neighboring countries, Croatia, Hungary, and Romania.
On July 2, 2009, the Government of Serbia adopted the Strategy for Digital Conversion, developed by the Ministry of Telecommunications (attached to this request for proposals or available here, or in Serbian here). This Strategy provides a roadmap for conversion. In the Strategy bidders can learn about different standards proposed, coverage, the ownership of multiplexes, and other items.
The Ministry needs to know how much digital conversion will cost the different stakeholders if it follows this strategy, including costs to:
• The Ministry
• The owner(s) of multiplexes
• The national and local stations that must switch transmission
• The State in promoting the conversion to the public
• The public, to buy converters (with the understanding that the State may well subsidize a part of the costs)
Since Serbia is behind other countries in the conversion process, the costs of conversion in other European countries that are further along the road can be a guideline in the costs to Serbia. Therefore the bidder is asked to select similar countries to Serbia (i.e. Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Croatia), and possibly other countries further along in the process, and based on their experience and/or planning, determine:
1) What were the costs to the government of implementing regulations and setting parameters, licensing etc. In what time frames?
2) What were the costs in building a national network of digital transmitters using similar standards as proposed by Serbia? Project those costs to covering the territory of Serbia as best you can.
3) Who paid those costs in other countries, were they “outsourced” to private contractors or borne by a state company. What were the methodologies applied for financing the digitization process?
4) What were the costs to local stations in converting to digital?
5) What was done for the conversion of Satellite and cable systems? In other countries, and what were the estimated costs.
6) What were the scope, criteria, and costs of digital receivers (STBs and possibly new antennas) to the consumer and how were those costs divided among the stakeholders?
• What were the models applied for end users, in order to ensure all social groups are included in the process of switchover to digital broadcasting of television programmes?
• What were the subsidization models used for STBs and possibly new antennas in other countries?
• What was the set of basic requirements recommended for subsidization?
• What criteria were used in other countries for subsidization models of different social groups, including people with low income in the process of digitization?
• Who are manufacturers of equipment (STBs and new antennas)
7) What different services are being provided in neighboring countries (number of national channels, local channels , direct to hand held, etc.) Have there been any economic impact studies on the likely increase in the number of channels that will come with digitization. If so, what are those costs?
8) Any recommendations that come out of the experiences of other countries on how this information can apply to Serbia.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR BIDDERS
Bidders are invited to submit a proposal to provide International Research & Exchanges Board – IREX/Serbia Media Assistance Program with the above listed services. All bids must be submitted in accordance with the following instructions.
PROPOSAL
The following information should be provided as part of the Contractor’s proposal:
a) A cover letter (which shall be considered an integral part of the Proposal) shall be signed by an individual who is authorized to bind the bidding firm contractually. The signature must indicate the title or position that the individual holds in the firm. An unsigned Proposal shall be rejected. The letter must designate a person with contact details for any communications needed during the bidding review process.
b) a brief description of your organization,
c) any comments on and/or problems with fulfilling the services as defined in this RFP,
d) deliverable date,
e) terms of payment in U.S. Dollars,
The proposal must be received at the following address by the deadline for bid submission. Proposals received after this date will not be evaluated or taken into consideration.
IREX recommends that the proposal be either hand-carried to the International Research & Exchanges Board – IREX/ Serbia Media Assistance Program Office or sent by Post Express to ensure their arrival before the deadline for the bid submission. Proposals should also be sent via email in MS word with signature pages sent in PDF format.
Attention: Igor Mandic (
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)
IREX/ Serbia Media Assistance Program
Kralja Petra 54/III
11000 Beograd
KEY ACTION DATES
RFP Distribution September 1, 2009
Deadline for bid submission October 5, 2009
Award notification to vendor November 2, 2009
EVALUATION
The Request for Proposals will be reviewed by a committee consisting of at least two representatives from International Research & Exchanges Board – IREX/Serbia Media Assistance Program. The committee reserves the right to seek outside expert opinion on the proposals. The committee may reject any or all bids and may waive any immaterial deviation or defect in a bid. Such a waiver of any immaterial deviation or defect shall in no way modify the RFP documents or excuse the Bidder from full compliance with the RFP specifications, if the contract awarded. The proposals from suppliers for delivery and vendor support of equipment will be evaluated using the following criteria:
• Total Price of the proposal, which must be stated in RSD or U.S. Dollars;
• Compliance with the requirement specifications;
• Terms of payment;
• Qualifications and expertise of organization;
• Previous experience in working in similar fields.
PRICE
The proposal’s price must include all costs associated with support services to be provided.
NOTE: No costs incurred by the Bidder in preparing and submitting the proposals are reimbursable. All such costs will be at Bidder’s expense.
NOTE: All prices are to be quoted in U.S. Dollars.
ERRORS IN THIS RFP
If a Bidder discovers any ambiguity, conflict, discrepancy, omission, or any other error in this RFP, the Bidder shall immediately notify International Research & Exchanges Board – IREX/ Serbia Media Assistance Program of such error in writing and request clarification or modification of the document.
Modifications will be made by issuance of an addendum to all parties who are participating in the bidding process. Modifications will be given by written notice, without divulging the source of the request.
If the RFP contains an error known to the Bidder, or an error that reasonably should have been known, the Bidder shall bid at its own risk. If the Bidder fails to notify International Research & Exchanges Board – IREX/ Serbia Media Assistance Program of the error prior to the date fixed for submission of bids, and is awarded the contract, the Bidder shall not be entitled to additional compensation or time by reason of the error or its later correction.
LANGUAGE OF PROPOSALS
The proposals, all correspondence and documents related to the proposal must be written in English. Supporting attachments, if any (e.g., organization registration and other statutory certificates) may be in Serbian.
NOTIFICATION UPON SELECTION
Notification of the successful bidder will take place according to the timetable stated under the section Key Action Dates in writing delivered to the contact address provided by the Bidder. The successful Bidder will be invited to sign a contract which embodies the terms of the accepted bid with or without technical modifications. The signed contract shall be the controlling document for the procurement.
IREX reserves the right to reject all bids if we do not find a satisfactory proposal.
CONTRACT
The contract for the study will be with International Research & Exchanges Board – IREX/ Serbia Media Assistance Program.
The Request For Proposal and the Vendor Proposal shall be attachments to the vendor contract to serve as a method of measuring vendor performance.
CONFIDENTIALITY
Any confidential information provided to the Contractor by International Research & Exchanges Board – IREX/ Serbia Media Assistance Program or by any other source referred to by or related to International Research & Exchanges Board – IREX/ Serbia Media Assistance Program is to be treated in accordance with confidentiality requirements specified by International Research and Exchanges Board – IREX/ Serbia Media Assistance Program. All proposals received by International Research & Exchanges Board – IREX/ Serbia Media Assistance Program will become the property of International Research & Exchanges Board – IREX/ Serbia Media Assistance Program and will not be returned.
September 18, 2009
To: Bidders on the Economic Study on digitization
Fm: IREX Serbia
RE: Questions regarding the RFP.
Four potential bidders have sent us questions on the RFP. In the interest of fairness we are sending a complete list of the questions and our answers to each of the companies on our bidder list. We are also posting the answers on our website.
1. What is expected to be written in the cover letter beside the the authorised person for bidding and the contact person? Signatures.
2. The RFP does not mention any guidelines for the content part of the proposal, and therefore it is not clear to what extent should we elaborate on the RFP content and process questions in this RFP, and in which part of the proposal. The organization of the bid should include:
• The cover letter.
• Description of the organization.
• The body of the proposal in which the bidders comment on each of the 8 items in the RFP and answer how you would address them.
• Comments on problems you anticipate.
• A timeline with deliverable date.
• Terms of payment.
• A budget with notes for justification. (starting on a separate page so we can review the budget separately).
• Appendix including a reference list and required documentation.
3. What kind of information should be provided in the references? Date of work, country where the work was performed, description (or short snypsos of the assignment), contact person.
4. In the point c) of your RPF it says that proposal must contain “any comments on and/or problems with fulfilling the services as defined in this RFP” What does this mean? Is this part of the technical proposal or is it solely meant as general comments on services asked by IREX? We would like to know any problems you forsee in preparing the study, for instance, any possible causes for delay or conditions that you see may cause you to need to modify the proposal once the process has started. This is not part of the technical proposal but is meant for general comments.
5. The RFP lists 5 points that should be included in the proposal. Should the proposal follow exactly this structure? - Where does the reference list fit? See the answer to question 2 above. It would be easier for us if the proposals were organized according to this structure.
6. What does "compliance with the requirement specifications" in the Evaluation paragraph of the RFP refer to? If bids come in with a scope of work that includes things not specified in the RFP, the committee can reject those activities within the SOW, rather than the entire bid.
7. Can we get a checklist of specific documents, certificates etc. (incl. acceptable format) to be handed in accompanying the proposal? Should we provide official company documents from court of registry, or any information on our financial situation (e.g. no tax liabilities, etc.?) The following documents should be an integral part of bid proposal (In the appendix):
• A PIB or tax identificaiton number (for non Serbian bidders). (copy)
• For Serbian Bidders: Certificate of company/organization registration from ABR (The Serbian Business Regisgers Agency) (copy)
• For non Serbian bidders, registration in the domiciled country (copy).
• A Balance Sheet and Income Statement for FY08 (copy)
• A certificate showing no tax liabilities from the Tax department would ba an asset for Serbian bidders but is not necessary.
8. The evaluation criteria also includes " Qualifications and expertise of organization" and "Previous experience in working in similar fields" - Beside the reference list what kind of qualifications are looked at?
• The Reference list.
• A list of similar projects undertaken,
• Indication of work in similar fields,
• CVs of key personnel
• Perhaps samples of past work.
• Professional certifications, if any.
9. In the criteria “Qualifications and expertise of organization" is it necessary to provide CV’s and references of key experts that would work on the project? Do you have any kind of example form for CV which needs to be satisfied? Do you have any minimum requirements regarding working hours that experts would spend? We would like CVs and references from key participants. We have no requirement on the CV format. We have no minimum requirements of working hours or number of consultants.
10. What is the weight of the different selection criteria? The selection criteria will be a two step process. First we will evaluate the proposals based on content.
• Compliance with the requirement specifications, 40%,
• Qualification of the organization, 35%,
• Previous experience in similar field 15%
• Terms of payment 10%.
We will rank proposals based on the above criteria and then will look at price to determine the final winner.
11. What are the expected terms of payment? Terms of payment are one of the criteria we will use in making our choice so we leave that to the bidder. However, typically terms include the amount the company requires on signing and the amont to be paid after approval of the deliverable by IREX. The bidder may include a payment schedule with interim deliverables and payments.
12. What is the expected deliverable date? (A, related question, what is the timeline of the project?) We would like the project complete by the end of 2009. We understand that there may be reasons that will make this difficult. If there are such reasons please outline them in the section outlining problems with fulfilling the services as defined in this RFP. We are more interest in quality than in delivery time.
13. What is indicative value of the project? (Can you provide us an approximate budget.) We put no budget limit on the project s in the RFP that we can see, through the bidding process, what the actual costs will be. We originally budgeted $20,000 for the project but but we realized that our estimate may have been innacurate. This is still a goal but please bid what you feel the real cost of the project will be. Bidders may provide a stair step or escelator budgets that give us a choice of options at different costs.
14. Does the study need to be prepared in Serbian as well as in English? No.
15. Regarding costs of conversion to digital TV from RFP, are named 4 countries (Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Croatia) a minimum or more is expected? We are asking it due to the fact that Scandinavia and Germany have already implemented digital TV and have full idea on costs of conversion. Also, does number of countries analyzed depend on budget? We chose neighboring countries as examples of countries that may be comparable to Serbia. We are willing to consider other countries in the proposal. Cost was a factor. The bidder may want to provide a cost escalator budget that includes more countries.
16. Is it possible to hire local experts who work in public administration as well as foreign experts working in public administrations in their home countries? If it is allowed under which circumstances it would be possible? We have asked USAID for clarification on this question and will provide answers to all on the bidding list it as soon as we hear from USAID.
September 23, 2009
To: Bidders on the Economic Study on digitization
Fm: IREX Serbia
RE: Questions regarding the RFP.
We have had more questions on our RFP from potential bidders. Here are our answers.
1) Regarding the weight attributed to each evaluation criterion (Q&A, point 10), we would like to clarify what "requirement specifications" refers to. Is it equivalent to proposing an approach to address each of the 8 points listed in the RFP? Yes, that is precisely what it applies to, how you address all 8 questions in the proposal.
2) Please clarify, based on Q&A point 10, what weight shall be attributed to the price itself (beyond the 10% related to terms of payment). If the procedure, as indicated, shall take place in two steps, what is the exact mechanism of resolving an eventual contradiction between (a) the content-based ranking established in the first round and (b) the results of the price assessment in the second round? We will judge each proposal based on its technical merits, without price, which is why we did not ask you to put price in the cover letter. We will rank the proposals. Once we have our decision based on the merits of the proposal we will look at price, starting with the top ranked proposal. In the anwer to the last set of questions I said:
”We originally budgeted $20,000 for the project but but we realized that our estimate may have been innacurate. This is still a goal but please bid what you feel the real cost of the project will be. Bidders may provide a stair step or escelator budgets that give us a choice of options at different costs.“
The last sentense may guide you on the best way to prepare your proposal.
3) For the bidders that are going to have subcontractors or they are going to build a consortium, what are the requirements related to the point 7 of your response? Is it sufficient that only the main bidder provides the documents/certificates like court registration, tax liabilities etc… or it has to be done also for each consortium members/subcontractors? If there is a major local subcontractor that will do 50% or more of the work it would be beneficial to provide the documents and certificates we mentioned. Otherwise, since the main bidder is the responsible party only the main bidder should be required to provide this material. We may ask for more information if the bidder is in the finalists and we have questions.
4) Is it possible to hire local experts who work in public administration as well as foreign experts working in public administrations in their home countries? If it is allowed under which circumstances it would be possible? We are still waiting answer to this question from USAID.
September 25, 2009.
To: All Bidders
Fm: Rich McClear
Re: Clarification on one other question from bidders.
Is it possible to hire local experts who work in public administration as well as foreign experts working in public administrations in their home countries? If it is allowed under which circumstances it would be possible?
The following came from USAID. The part quoted concerns people working for the host government but USAID tells me that the same rules apply to consultants working for other governments as well.
”Payment for project related research and scientific studies conducted outside normal working hours and permitted by HG (Host government) practice and law is allowable provided the HG employee is not completing this work during hours of his regular duties paid by the HG and provided the work does not conflict in any other way with official duties. A clear relationship and method of payment needs to be established for these services. E.g. – cooperative agreement, end product or purchase order. Generally a PSC (personnel services contract) is not considered an appropriate mechanism because of the limited employee/employer relationship.”
“Missions should generally avoid financing payments for individuals who are already carrying out similar activities as part of their normal daily duties or official function. Also, to the maximum extent practical, the work should be performed at a site other than the normal employee’s worksite. It should be known to the HG’s supervisor.”
