14.3.2019

Avoid Public Procurement Pitfalls and Grow Your Business

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Competition & Procurement

Our procurement team regularly encounters situations in which a tenderer’s offer has been rejected, the tenderer excluded from the tender process or the filing of the tender is late even in significant procurements. Winning a contract can sometimes be down to simply managing to make an offer that complies with the invitation to tender. Many companies find public procurement difficult, because the formal requirements and rules differ from competitive tendering in the private sector. We have put together a few pieces of advice that should help you avoid the worst pitfalls and bring home the win.

Focus on Responsibility Requirements

Responsibility issues are particularly important in public procurement. The use of ‘discretionary exclusion grounds’ has become very common, and an increasing number of contracting entities require that companies have an impeccable record. A company can be excluded from public tendering processes, for example, due to a serious error in professional activities or due to a violation of employment or competition law. You can avoid exclusion by presenting the contracting entity with persuasive evidence that any past omissions have been effectively rectified.

Get to Know the Electronic Procurement System in Advance

Electronic procurement systems give many companies headaches during their first tenders. Starting to fill out the tender in the electronic system too late can often be fatal. Sometimes a completed tender fails to be sent on time due to a technical issue—not a situation anyone wants to find themselves in.

Seize the Opportunities Provided by Market Consultations

You should seize opportunities to engage contracting entities in a dialogue. A market consultation carried out by a contracting entity is a chance for you to bring what you can offer to their attention and describe how you think a tender process should be organised to make best use of developments on the market. This makes it possible for tender processes to take the latest innovations into account and benefit from the market’s true potential. In practice, this always leads to higher quality procurements and, thus, benefits society as a whole.

Precision Advice is the Key to Success

We want to help our clients build new success stories. In public procurements, this is a particularly pleasant task, as we get to help companies win many tender processes and grow their business. In addition to advice in individual tender processes, a tailored workshop for your sales team could be the right tool to make sure you win your next tender. Contact us if you’d like us to plan a training session for your company.