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Bid or Not?
Every guide to bid/no-bid decisions is a framework, a checklist or a template. None of them shows a real tender and a real call. This series does: one public notice per issue, the verdict our judge actually returned against a demo agency profile, and the reasoning in the open, so you can disagree with it.
How to read these
The tenders are real and were live on Find a Tender, Contracts Finder, TED or BOAMP when judged. The firm is not: the verdicts are run against a constructed UK communications and digital agency with a realistic capability profile, so nobody's confidential pipeline is on display. Each issue follows the same shape: what an alert tool does with the notice, what the judge did with it, and what you do with the answer.
| Issue | Tender | Value | Verdict | The lesson |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Audience research services, National Galleries of Scotland | £396,363 | Stretch | Right sector, wrong deliverable: the gap is a capability, so a partner closes it. |
| #2 | Internet-enabled CBT, NHS Scotland shared services | £9,000,000 | Skip | The biggest number in the feed is usually the clearest skip. |
The discipline behind the series
Pick tenders where you give yourself a real chance of winning, or do not waste your week and the buyer's. That is the whole game, and it is a reading job before it is a writing job. The three questions the judge asks are the three you should ask of any notice in your inbox:
- Are we eligible? Country, minimum value, certifications, clearances. If the answer is no, nothing else matters.
- Can we prove the fit? Not "could we do this" but "have we done this, and can we point at it".
- What is missing, exactly? If the honest answer is one named thing, the tender is a STRETCH and you have a decision to make about partners or timing. If it is several things, skip and keep the day.
Suggest a tender
Send a live notice to [email protected] and we will run it through the judge against the demo profile and publish the reasoning, whatever the verdict.
Related
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