Tendering for construction work: bid less, win more

Aug 27
3 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Introduction

Most construction firms tender too much. They price everything that arrives, at a win rate they have never calculated, using estimating time they cannot spare.

The result is a business that is permanently busy bidding and permanently short of work, having spread its effort so thin that no individual bid is strong. Tendering better usually means tendering less.

1. Tendering for construction work costs money, so treat it as an investment

Every bid consumes estimating hours, management attention and subcontractor goodwill.

Put a figure on it. Once you know what a bid costs and what proportion you win, you can see that pricing everything is not free enterprise but an expense with a poor return, and you will start choosing.

2. Qualify before you price

The decision to bid deserves more thought than it usually receives.

Do you know the client, is the value in your range, is the programme realistic, how many others are invited, is there an incumbent, and can you resource it if you win. A bid failing several of those tests should be declined, politely and promptly.

3. Find out how many firms are bidding

This changes the mathematics entirely and it is a reasonable question to ask.

Being one of four is worth serious effort. Being one of twelve is a lottery you are funding. Clients who will not answer the question are telling you something useful about how the process will be run.

4. Decline properly, because it improves your position

Saying no is not a lost opportunity if it is handled well.

Reply quickly, explain that it is not the right fit, and say what would be. Firms that decline cleanly are invited again; firms that submit a weak, hurried bid or simply go quiet get quietly removed from the list.

5. Answer the quality questions as carefully as the price

Tenders are increasingly scored on more than cost, and the non-price sections are where bids are lost.

Methodology, programme, safety, social value, sustainability and key personnel. These are marked against criteria, so answer the question asked, in the order asked, with evidence — rather than attaching a generic company brochure.

6. Price the risk instead of hoping about it

Every project contains uncertainty, and pretending otherwise transfers it to you.

Ground conditions, existing structures, access, long-lead materials, an occupied building, a compressed programme. Price these explicitly, qualify your assumptions in writing, and be clear about what your figure excludes.

7. Get subcontractor prices you can actually rely on

Bids built on rushed, informal subcontractor numbers are how firms win jobs and lose money.

Give your supply chain proper time and full information, and confirm the scope each price covers. A gap between what you assumed and what the subcontractor priced becomes your loss, discovered months later.

8. Make the submission easy to score

The person assessing your bid is working through a pile of them against a matrix.

Follow the requested structure, label everything, include what was asked for and nothing that was not, and submit before the deadline. Bids are routinely marked down or excluded for procedural failures that have nothing to do with capability.

9. Record every outcome and look at the pattern

A tender log is the cheapest business development tool available.

Client, value, number of bidders, your price, the winning price, and the reason given. After twenty entries the pattern is obvious: which clients, sizes and project types you win, and which you should stop bidding for entirely.

Conclusion

Treat each bid as a costed investment rather than a free option, and accept that a smaller number of well-resourced bids will beat a large number of thin ones.

Qualify hard before pricing anything, establish how many firms are competing, decline promptly and professionally, answer the quality sections against the criteria, price and qualify risk explicitly, obtain subcontractor prices you can rely on, make the submission easy to score, and keep a tender log until the pattern of what you actually win becomes obvious.