How are Tender Bids Evaluated?

When tendering for work in the public sector, it’s important to know how your bid will be evaluated. Most projects will include a detailed description of the evaluation and scoring process for your tender writers to consider, but what sort of criteria might you expect to be judged on from the outset?

As experienced bid writing consultants, we’ve seen thousands of tender documents and we know the processes buyers use to determine which of the prospective vendors should get the job. In this article, we’re going to discuss the most common of the areas in which you can expect to score.

Part I: Eligibility

Unlike the other parts of the scoring system, which are rated on a scale, this preliminary stage has a binary answer – either you’re eligible for the project or you’re not. For the most part, any company or contractor can submit their bid, but they may be knocked out of the running before it even gets to the evaluation stage.

Typically, you will be able to prove that you meet the basic requirements of the tender: this means that you have answered all of the questions in the bid documentation, that you have adequate insurance to cover your involvement in the project, and that you have the necessary funds to begin the project on time. If you are unable to answer all questions in the submission documents or provide evidence to support your answers, your bid may well be dismissed without further consideration. This is part of the reason why professional tender writers are so important.

Assuming you have completed the forms correctly and supplied the corroborating paperwork, your bid will move onto the scoring phase.

The scoring phase is split into two sections – commercial (or pricing) and quality. How much weight is given to each section depends on the buyer and the nature of the project. Where budgets are tight, the commercial scoring section will account for a large part of the evaluation, as it’s essential that the buyer gets value for money. Where the prestige of the project is more important, the quality scoring section will take precedence, as it’s more important that everything is completed to exacting specifications. This can also include the social value of the project.

Part II: Commercial Scoring

In a nutshell, this is where the buyer compares the cash value of your bid to those provided by other vendors. Some companies think it’s as simple as the lowest bid wins, but that’s rarely the case. The specific weighting for pricing will be detailed in the tender documents, but it typically gives each company a percentage score compared to the lowest bid. If the commercial scoring counts for 50% of the tender, for instance, then the lowest bid will score 50% (i.e. the full proportion of the commercial scoring section). Each successively larger bid wills score less, but always in proportion to the lowest bid.

Part III: Quality Scoring

In the quality section, vendors are not compared with one another. There are certain questions that the buyer will ask as part of the submission process and the answers to each will be marked out of 5. Some questions may carry greater weight than others, depending on the intent of the project. The answers are graded by the buyer and weighted accordingly.

Part IV: Final Scoring

The scores for commercial and quality are calculated and then adjusted for weighting as per the original tender documents. They are then added together, with the job being awarded to the company with the highest cumulative score.

If this all sounds a bit complicated, it doesn’t need to be. For professional and experienced bid writing consultants who can help you and your tender writers navigate the evaluation process for any project, get in touch with Your Tender Team today for a free consultation.