Six invitations on a Monday
Invitations to tender come from clients, consultants, frameworks and public portals. On Monday there are six: a school extension, a care home refurbishment, a shell-and-core unit, two housing schemes and a church hall. Your estimating team is already pricing three jobs due next week. Someone replies yes to all six, because saying no feels like losing work. Two get priced properly, three get priced in a rush and one is returned blank at the deadline.
Months later nobody can say why you bid for the ones you did, or why the win rate on a certain kind of job is so poor.
Why every tender gets a yes
Declining a tender feels risky, and there is rarely a clear rule for saying no. Invitations land in different inboxes and portals, the facts that matter are buried in tender documents, and the person deciding does not see estimating workload. The decision gets made by default, by whoever opened the email.
- Invitations arrive through email, portals and phone calls.
- Key facts, value, form of contract, programme, competition, are in the documents, not the email.
- Estimating workload is in the chief estimator's head.
- Bid decisions are not recorded, so they cannot be reviewed.
- Outcomes and feedback are not linked back to the decision.
What bidding for everything costs
Estimating is one of the most expensive things a contractor does without getting paid. Pricing the wrong jobs means rushing the right ones. Supply chain goodwill suffers when subcontractors are asked to price jobs you had little chance of winning. Rushed prices carry risk into the jobs you do win. None of this shows up on a cost report, which is why it continues.
The tender register we build
- Every invitation, from email or portal, is logged in one register with the client, consultant, return date and source.
- Tender documents are read to pull out the key facts: approximate value, sector, location, form of contract, programme, number of tenderers if stated, and any unusual requirements. A person checks them.
- Your directors set the criteria that matter to you, for example sector, distance from office, value band, client history, contract form, and each invitation is scored against them.
- Estimating workload is shown alongside: which tenders are in progress and when they are due.
- The bid or no-bid decision is recorded with a reason, and polite decline emails are drafted for a person to send.
- Results and feedback are recorded against each tender, so you can see win rates by client, sector and size.
- The criteria and their weights are reviewed against outcomes, so the scoring reflects what actually wins you work.
| Criterion | Example of what your directors might set |
|---|---|
| Sector | Education and care preferred, retail less so |
| Location | Within the area your site teams cover |
| Value | Within the band your cash flow suits |
| Client | Existing relationship, payment history |
| Competition | Short list preferred to open tender |
The criteria are yours. The register makes them consistent and visible; it does not make the decision.
Estimating with a choice
Every invitation is seen, logged and decided on its merits, in the open. Estimators spend their time on tenders you have chosen to go for, and can price them properly. Clients get prompt, courteous declines instead of late ones. Over time the register shows which kinds of work you win and which you only ever price, which is the information you need to aim your business development.
Do your tenders get priced by default?
- Nearly every invitation gets a yes.
- Estimators are pricing more than they can do properly.
- Tenders are returned blank or late.
- Nobody can say why you bid for a particular job.
- You do not know your win rate by sector or client.