A tender with a spreadsheet that raises more questions than it answers
A housing association publishes a tender for lift maintenance across its stock. The asset list has one row per block, a column for number of lifts, a column called type that sometimes says passenger, sometimes says Otis, and sometimes is blank. Floors served are missing for a third of the rows. Some addresses are building names only. The deadline for clarification questions is in ten days, and the submission deadline three weeks after that.
Your estimator splits rows into individual lifts, guesses types from photos on Google Street View, writes clarification questions one by one, and prices each lift in a spreadsheet using rates from the last tender, adjusted by feel. A second estimator, working on another tender the same month, uses slightly different assumptions.
Why tender pricing is slow and uneven
Lift maintenance pricing depends on details that customer asset lists rarely hold properly: lift type, drive, floors served, usage, visit frequency required and any special access. Without them, estimators fill gaps with assumptions, and each estimator's assumptions differ.
- Asset lists arrive in every layout, with one row per site or per lift.
- Key pricing details are missing or written inconsistently.
- Clarification questions are written by hand and easy to miss.
- Rates and assumptions live in each estimator's spreadsheet.
- Travel and geography are estimated rather than worked out.
The risk in inconsistent pricing
Underpricing a tender locks you into years of thin or loss-making maintenance. Overpricing loses work you could have done well. Inconsistent assumptions between estimators make it hard to learn which prices won and why. And the manual effort limits how many tenders you can respond to at all, so good opportunities are passed over simply because nobody had time.
A tender tool built around your rate rules
We build a tender pricing tool that turns a customer's asset list into a clean lift-by-lift schedule, priced from rules your commercial team controls.
- The customer's spreadsheet is imported and mapped to a standard set of fields. Rows covering several lifts are split into one row per lift.
- Values are standardised, for example manufacturer names moved out of the type column, and addresses geocoded so each site has a location.
- Missing or unclear fields are flagged, and draft clarification questions are generated for your estimator to edit and submit before the deadline.
- Your rate rules are set up once: base rates by lift type, adjustments for floors, visit frequency and access, and travel based on distance from your engineers' bases.
- Each lift is priced from the rules, with the assumptions used shown next to it, and the estimator adjusts anything where their knowledge differs.
- The output is the customer's own pricing schedule, filled in, plus an internal summary of assumptions and risks for the bid decision.
| Tender step | By hand | With the tender tool |
|---|---|---|
| Reading the asset list | Retyped and split | Imported and standardised |
| Finding gaps | Noticed while pricing | Flagged on import |
| Clarification questions | Written one by one | Drafted from the gaps |
| Pricing each lift | Spreadsheet by feel | Your rules, then estimator review |
| Assumptions | In the estimator's head | Recorded against each lift |
The rules are your commercial judgement. The tool applies them consistently and shows its working, and the estimator always has the final say.
After the submission
Whether you win or lose, the priced schedule and its assumptions are kept. When a tender result comes back, you can see where your price sat and which assumptions drove it. If you win, the cleaned asset list becomes the starting point for your contract takeover, so the work done at tender stage is not thrown away.
What your estimators get back
Estimators spend their time on judgement and bid strategy instead of reformatting spreadsheets. Clarification questions go in on time and cover the gaps that matter. Two estimators pricing the same kind of lift reach similar numbers. Deciding whether to bid stops being limited by how much retyping the estimators can face that month.
Signs tender pricing is holding you back
- Estimators retype customer asset lists by hand.
- Clarification questions are missed or late.
- Different estimators price similar lifts differently.
- You pass on tenders because nobody has time.
- Assumptions behind past prices are not recorded.