Vendor Evaluation Scorecard
A weighted scoring Excel scorecard for evaluating and comparing vendors across multiple criteria including capability, pricing, support, security, and references. Produces an automatic recommendation ranking.
What’s inside
- Weighted scoring across 6 evaluation dimensions
- Automatic vendor ranking and recommendation
- Blank Template + Filled Example
About this download
The Vendor Evaluation Scorecard is a weighted-scoring Excel tool for evaluating and comparing vendors across multiple criteria including capability, pricing, support, security, references, cultural fit and financial stability. Structured vendor selection is one of the highest-leverage procurement disciplines — the cost of choosing the wrong strategic vendor dwarfs the cost of running a proper selection process, yet many organisations still pick vendors on the basis of the most persuasive pitch or the strongest personal relationship.
The workbook includes a weightings tab (where stakeholders agree the relative importance of each criterion before scoring begins, so the rules cannot be changed to fit the preferred answer), a criteria definition tab with explicit "what good looks like" anchors for each evaluation dimension, a per-vendor scoring sheet, a summary ranking with automatic weighted-score calculation, a side-by-side comparison matrix, a risk assessment (financial stability, security posture, reference-check outcomes, geopolitical exposure), a commercial-model comparison normalising different pricing structures (per-seat, consumption-based, tiered, annual minimum), a reference-check tracker, and an executive-recommendation slide that tells the decision story in one page.
This template is used by procurement teams, CIOs and CTOs selecting technology platforms, CFOs selecting professional-services firms, CISOs running security-sensitive procurements, operations directors selecting suppliers and PMO leads running structured vendor selections on behalf of business sponsors. It suits both enterprise procurement and mid-market selections, and both formal RFP processes and more informal comparative assessments.
A strong selection process is ruthless about evidence. Avoid the common failure modes: criteria written after the scoring (rules written to justify the preferred answer), single-person evaluations (one perspective dominates), reference checks conducted without structure (anecdotal impressions rather than comparable data), and commercial comparisons that don't normalise structurally different pricing models. Run scoring independently, then calibrate in a group session — the conversation about where scorers disagree is where the real insight appears.
The filled example inside the download walks through a complete multi-vendor selection for a hypothetical enterprise software platform, with realistic scoring differentials, an honest reference-check log, a credible commercial comparison and a final recommendation that reads like a real procurement-committee paper.
Inside Vizually, the vendor-onboarding plan after selection becomes a tracked visual project — contract sign, security review, integration, pilot, broad rollout — so the momentum from a good selection is not lost in a slow implementation.