Bid preparation for public tenders

What one bid costs — and when the effort doesn’t pay off

Preparing a competitive bid for a medium-complexity procedure realistically requires between 40 and 120 person-hours: reading and analysing the documentation, drafting the technical proposal, gathering and formatting references, preparing the ESPD, coordinating declarations and certifications, arranging the bid bond. For more complex subjects — construction, specialised IT systems, healthcare — this investment grows considerably.

The problem isn’t just time. It’s also quality under pressure. When a team prepares three or four bids simultaneously in the final 48 hours before a deadline, the risk of errors rises disproportionately. A missed declaration, a technical text carried over from a previous tender without updating, a discrepancy between the price schedule and the technical description — any of these can cost you the bid.

The figures below are illustrative samples, based on the real scale of our base of 84,532 tracked tenders. The specific numbers for your sector and procedure type are computed live in the platform.

How we support bid preparation

We work as an assistant to your team, not as a replacement. Decisions about content — what to propose, at what price, how to position your strengths — remain entirely yours. We structure the process, prepare drafts, check completeness, and flag gaps or risks before it is too late.

The process begins with a careful reading of the tender documentation — the notice, conditions, technical specification, evaluation methodology and all templates. The AI system extracts every requirement in a structured way: mandatory documents, formats, deadlines, layout requirements, specific clauses. This forms the basis that determines what the document package must contain.

• Drafting the technical proposal based on the specification and the company profile.
• Structuring the price proposal against the template and documentation requirements.
• Completing and reviewing the ESPD for each participant, including in consortia and with subcontractors.
• Coordinating and reviewing accompanying declarations, certificates and references.
• Final completeness and compliance check before submission.

The technical proposal — between persuasiveness and formality

The technical proposal is simultaneously a marketing document and a legally binding text. It must convince the committee that your company is capable of delivering the subject of the contract, while also addressing every specific requirement from the technical specification — without gaps, deviations or ambiguities.

A common mistake is writing the technical proposal “in broad terms” — well-sounding text but without specific answers to specific requirements. The committee cannot accept a proposal in which it cannot identify a response to every specification requirement. The absence of that correspondence is a formal ground for exclusion.

We support the preparation of a structured technical text in which every documentation requirement is addressed explicitly. The draft is a base for your finalisation — you add the specific data, references, technical characteristics, and relevant experience. The result is a document built on the logic of the requirements, not on a template from a previous tender.

The price proposal — accuracy without surprises

The price proposal looks more technical than the technical proposal, but errors here are no less fatal. A discrepancy between unit prices and the total value, unfilled positions in the bill of quantities, an exceeded budget — each can lead to exclusion or an unwanted price position.

In tenders with an evaluation methodology that includes a price criterion, positioning is an art: low enough to be competitive, high enough to be economically justified and not raise concerns about an “abnormally low offer.” Our data on historical price positions in comparable tenders provides a reference point — not a recipe, but context.

We structure the price proposal against the template from the documentation, verify arithmetic accuracy, and flag any discrepancies between the technical and price proposals — the mismatch between the two is a frequent and preventable problem.

The ESPD and supporting documentation — where errors hide

The European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) is required in almost every open procedure. At first glance it is a standard form, but completing it holds several traps: different requirements when bidding as a consortium, with subcontractors, or involving members of management bodies; specific clauses added by individual contracting authorities; the need for synchronisation with the other documents in the bid.

Beyond the ESPD, most procedures require a set of declarations — on the absence of grounds for exclusion, on confidentiality, on the use or non-use of subcontractors, and specific declarations under data protection or anti-corruption legislation. Each declaration must use the correct template, contain correctly completed information, and be signed by the correct person.

The bid bond — where required — has its own requirements: text, validity period, method of presentation. An incorrectly drawn up bid bond is grounds for exclusion.

Our system builds a checklist of mandatory documents directly from the documentation of the specific tender, and tracks which are ready, which are yet to be obtained, and which carry a risk. See the sample format in the table below.

The speed of preparation — how up to 5× faster is achieved

The acceleration comes from three parallel mechanisms. First, automated requirement extraction: instead of manually reading 80–150 pages of documentation, the system structures every requirement in minutes. Second, templating of repeating elements: declarations, the standard sections of the technical proposal, the structure of the price proposal are not built from scratch each time. Third, systematic completeness checking: instead of an anxious review in the last hour, you have a live checklist from the start of the process.

It is important to understand what is not accelerated: content decisions. What methodology to propose, with what team, at what price, how to structure delivery — there is no template for these questions. They require your business judgement and your sector expertise. We accelerate the administrative and structural layer; the substantive layer stays with you.

The final review — the last line of defence

Before submission we carry out a final review of the package: every mandatory document against the documentation requirements, formatting, validity of deadlines, and consistency across the different parts of the bid. This review catches errors made at the last moment under pressure — text carried over unedited from a previous tender, a declaration signed by an unauthorised person, a price schedule with an unfilled position.

The result of the final review is specific: a list of identified discrepancies with recommendations for correction. Nothing is corrected without your knowledge and decision — we flag, you decide and correct.

• Completeness check against the documentation requirements.
• Arithmetic accuracy check on the price proposal.
• Consistency check between the technical and price proposals.
• Validity period check for the bid, bid bond, and documents.
• Layout and signature check against the documentation requirements.