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Go / no-go: how to decide which tenders to bid for and which to walk away from in time

Every week brings tenders that might suit your company, and there is never time to prepare them all. Deciding which to bid for, and which to drop before a single hour goes into them, is the decision with the widest consequences in the whole process, and it is nearly always made on instinct, with the deadline bearing down. This guide is for whoever handles tenders at a company, or wants to start bidding. It proposes an order: first what is mandatory, then fit, and only then competitiveness.

Published

Why is bid or no bid the most expensive decision?

According to the Public Sector Procurement Platform (PLACSP), more than 180,000 tenders a year are published in Spain. Nobody can read them all, let alone prepare a bid for each. Bidding for the one that never fitted costs the team weeks. Passing on the one that did costs the contract. And bidding for more does not mean winning more: what improves results is a larger number of opportunities with a good fit, and quality that stays high and consistent across all of them. That is why judgement pays off most at the go / no-go stage: nothing has been spent yet.

First filter: can we bid at all?

The specifications are the documents that govern the tender. The PCAP (Pliego de Cláusulas Administrativas Particulares, the administrative specifications) usually sets out who may bid, what solvency is required, what documentation must be provided and how bids will be scored; the PPT (Pliego de Prescripciones Técnicas, the technical specifications) describes what is being bought. It helps to keep three things apart: minimum requirements, which you either meet or do not; award criteria, which earn points; and conditions that simply describe how the contract will be performed. Only the first group decides whether you can bid, and each requirement is either evidenced in the form demanded or it does not count.

  • Economic, financial, technical or professional solvency, and the precise form in which the specifications require it to be evidenced.
  • Classifications, accreditations or certifications demanded as a condition of taking part.
  • Previous experience you can evidence, of the kind and in the format the tender file recognises.
  • Administrative documentation: the DEUC (the ESPD, the European Single Procurement Document) or equivalent declarations, powers of attorney, company details, guarantees.
  • Deadlines: the submission date, and the date by which any certificate you still have to obtain must be in hand.

If a requirement is missing, the question is twofold: is it mandatory, and can it be obtained before the date required? A certificate that arrives late is a no-go, however good the fit. A capability you lack on your own but have alongside another company can be offered as a joint venture (a UTE, unión temporal de empresas) or through subcontracting, where the tender file allows it. Each case is worked through with the specifications open, not from memory.

Second filter: does it fit what we actually do?

Being able to bid is not the same as being right to bid. The second filter sets the contract against the company as it really is: the subject matter, the budget, the term and any extensions, the geography, the contracting body and the team that would have to deliver it while still looking after the projects already under way. A contract you can win but cannot deliver well is worse than a drop: the penalties, the guarantees and the special performance conditions are all in the specifications, and they are read before the decision, not after the award.

If the contract is split into lots, a company may bid for one, several or all of them, depending on the tender file. Choosing the lot where you are strong is usually a better decision than covering them all: every lot is another bid to prepare. And estimate the effort before saying yes. Some tenders are settled on administrative documentation and price alone; others call for a long technical proposal, annexes, accreditations, calculations and the coordination of several people. Long specifications on a short deadline are a cost in their own right.

Third filter: can we be competitive?

An award criterion is what the contracting body uses to score and compare bids. It can be automatic, like a price formula, or rest on a technical assessment. Look at how the points are split. If most of them go on price and your minimum margin will not let you go as low as the competition is likely to, no technical proposal will make up the difference. If the technical assessment carries the weight, the question changes: what the contracting body really values, what evidence you can bring and which strengths deserve the most space.

The competition can be estimated too. Who usually bids for contracts like this one, what price the last one was awarded at and with what scores. Where that information exists, it changes the decision; where it does not, it is worth knowing that you are deciding without it. And weigh the risk of your bid being treated as abnormally low: the final pricing decision has to respect the company's real limits, costs and strategy, never the other way round.

A go / no-go checklist

  1. Can we bid? Mandatory requirements, solvency and accreditations, one by one.
  2. What documentation are we missing, and will it arrive in time?
  3. Do we have enough experience we can evidence, in the form the specifications ask for?
  4. Does the contract fit our real capabilities and the team we have available?
  5. How are the points split, and where can we earn them?
  6. How much competition is there likely to be, and at what price?
  7. What risks does the tender file carry: penalties, guarantees, special performance conditions?
  8. How much effort will the bid take, set against what we stand to win?
  9. Is there a clear reason to drop it?

How Carabela makes this decision

Carabela builds a context for each company: what it sells, what experience it can evidence, which certifications it holds, what size of contract suits it and how much risk it is prepared to carry. With that context, its tender analysis answers the same questions as the checklist for every opportunity it detects: whether you can bid, what you are missing, how much effort it would take, what competition to expect and what would make the bid competitive. The aim is to keep the team on the opportunities with the most potential and not lose weeks to the rest.

The decision remains yours. You can require your approval before a tender is taken on or dropped, or delegate the decision and hear only about the exceptions. Carabela does not guarantee awards, because no company can, and it is no substitute for legal advice where a procedure calls for it. What it does is stop the most expensive decision in the process being made by feel. You can see how it works from start to finish, from detection to submission.

Frequently asked questions

Does bidding for more tenders mean winning more?

Not necessarily. Bidding indiscriminately wears the team down on tender files with little fit and lowers the quality of every bid. What improves results is a larger number of opportunities with a good fit and a quality that stays high and consistent in each one. A sound go / no-go is what makes both possible at the same time.

Do we have to meet every requirement in the specifications?

The mandatory requirements have to be met, or evidenced in the form demanded, for the bid to be valid. It helps to distinguish them from the award criteria, which earn points but do not exclude anyone, and from the conditions that simply describe how the contract will be performed. Falling short on a scored criterion loses points; falling short on a minimum requirement puts you out.

What happens if we are missing a certificate or a requirement?

It depends on whether it is mandatory, whether it can be obtained before the date required and what the tender file says. If it is mandatory and will not arrive in time, the tender is not viable and the sooner you drop it the better. If it can be obtained, the question becomes what would have to be sorted out before bidding, and whether the effort is worth it.

Can we bid if we have never worked with the Spanish public sector?

In many cases, yes, but it depends on the specific solvency and experience requirements of each contract. Having no track record in public procurement does not mean a company cannot start. The sensible approach is to look for contracts aligned with what it already knows how to deliver, and to put them through the same filter as any other opportunity.