Public tenders are formally open. In practice the winners are those who focus their capacity on the right procedures. The bid/no-bid decision is therefore the commercially most important decision in the bid process, and many companies take it informally: management sees a notice on simap, finds it fitting, and the team starts writing. This article describes a framework that structures this moment.
Why the decision costs so much
A bid ties up specialists who cannot bill during that time, plus management, costing and often external partners. Complex projects with several references, concepts and presentations quickly add up to a substantial amount. A lost bid is not the problem; losing is part of the game. The problem is bids that, examined soberly, never had a realistic chance.
Stage 1: the knock-out check
Before anything is scored comes a binary check. Do we meet every mandatory requirement and every suitability criterion with evidence we can actually provide? Are the required key people available in the required period with the required qualifications? Is there anything that could lead to exclusion, such as prior involvement? A single no ends the review. It sounds trivial, yet it is the step most often skipped.
Stage 2: scoring
For the remaining procedures a simple one-to-five scale per criterion works well, weighted once by the company and then applied consistently:
- fit of references in content, size and type of authority
- strength against the award criteria and their weighting, especially the price share
- foreseeable competition and own price position
- contract risks such as penalties, liability, acceptance and warranty
- bid effort relative to contract value
- strategic value, such as entry with a new authority or into a framework agreement
The scale does not replace judgement; it makes it visible. A procedure of high strategic importance with a weak reference position can be a deliberate bid, but then as a deliberate investment rather than a hope.
The right moments
The first decision is taken within a few days of publication, based on a short analysis of the documents. A second checkpoint follows the Q&A round, once the authority’s answers are in. A third, brief checkpoint before price calculation prevents a bid being finished only because much work has already gone into it.
Who decides
Good decisions separate preparation from decision. One person prepares the facts, ideally someone who will not write the bid. The decision is taken in a small group of management and the responsible specialist, and the result is recorded with score and reasons. A documented no is an outcome, not an omission.
Learning from awards
In Switzerland awards above the thresholds are published. Linking your own results to published awards reveals patterns: in which cantons and contract sizes do we win, against which competitors do we regularly lose, which criteria cost us points? After a year the weighting of the framework can be calibrated. This analysis is tedious by hand, but it is the biggest lever for better decisions.
Special cases
For a framework agreement, the call-off mechanism and volume estimates matter more than the nominal contract value. For a bidding consortium, the knock-out check must be done for each member. In the invitation procedure the chance of winning is often higher because fewer suppliers take part, so the effort pays off more readily, even for smaller contracts.
Three self-deceptions
First: “We know the authority.” Personal acquaintance does not replace points in the evaluation. Second: “The tender reads as if written for us.” Other suppliers think so too. Third: “We have to bid or they will stop inviting us.” A weak bid harms the relationship more than a reasoned decline. The steps as a checklist with verifiable criteria are in our bid/no-bid checklist. Submira, our platform for public tenders, bases this decision on the supplier’s own win rate and the extracted knock-out criteria.