Salient Characteristics Approach

The Salient Characteristics Approach is a way of writing procurement requirements around the essential outcomes and performance features a buyer needs. It does not prescribe detailed technical designs, brands or specific products. The buyer defines what must be achieved, and the supplier decides how to achieve it.

A typical example is a requirement that a system process a stated number of transactions per hour at a stated level of uptime. The solicitation does not dictate the hardware configuration or software stack. This leaves suppliers room to propose innovative, functionally equivalent solutions, and it shifts the focus from specifying particular versions of software, hardware or materials to specifying the capabilities and results required.

Where salient characteristics come from

The idea builds on the older procurement concept of salient characteristics. The U.S. Marine Corps Regional Contracting Office at Quantico describes them as the physical, functional and performance characteristics an item must have or meet to be acceptable for award. Its examples include colour, material, dimensions, intended use, principles of operation, capacity and minimum output. It also notes that federal regulations prohibit writing requirements so that they effectively mandate a particular brand name or a feature peculiar to one manufacturer.

In brand-name-or-equal purchasing, the solicitation lists the salient characteristics of the named item. An offered product is acceptable if it meets them, and it does not have to match every design detail. The characteristics work as a performance specification against which equivalence is judged. The Salient Characteristics Approach extends that logic from product equivalency to the whole requirement.

How the approach differs from prescriptive specifications

• The buyer owns the "what". The buyer states the outcomes and the performance metrics that capture the operational need, such as throughput, reliability or capacity.
• The supplier owns the "how". The supplier chooses the architecture, materials, team and methods used to deliver.
• Only essential features are mandatory. Minor or brand-specific details are left out so they do not narrow competition without reason.

Related practice in Canadian federal procurement

The Supply Manual does not use the phrase itself, but federal procurement applies the same logic under other names. The Solutions-based Informatics Professional Services Supply Arrangement is a mandatory method of supply for solution-based IT professional services. The supplier provides a comprehensive solution to a business problem, determines its team composition, manages delivery and assumes responsibility for the outcome. Requirements are framed as needs for complete solutions, organised into initiation, planning and execution phases.

Defence procurement is moving the same way. The review of Canada's contract cost principles and profit policy notes that large-scale defence procurement is moving to performance-based contracting, which measures a contract by value for money and price rather than cost and profit. It adds that current rules do not yet provide guidance on this model, which is used in allied countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia. The National Shipbuilding Strategy uses performance-based contracts with incentives for cost reduction, schedule adherence and improvements in scope and quality, and a ceiling price to protect Canada's interests.

Public-private partnerships follow the same pattern. CanadaBuys guidance on P3s describes output-based specifications that define what is required rather than how it is done. The private partner designs, builds, finances and maintains the asset under a single performance-based Project Agreement.

What it means for a supplier bidding on Canadian public contracts

When a solicitation is framed around outcomes, read the stated performance characteristics as the test your bid will be judged against. Build the proposal around measurable results, and show how your chosen solution meets each essential characteristic. Expect to carry accountability for delivery and risk, because the buyer has left the method to you. Where a bid offers an alternative to a named product, demonstrate equivalence against the listed characteristics rather than against the brand.