How to win a tender contract?

Tendering is a process where local or central government authorities need to procure a good or service, and market a contract notice or an Invitation to Tender (ITT). Then, bidder organisations are required to submit a tender (often called a bid or proposal), offering their total price on the contract and responding to quality questions on how they will deliver the works or services. It is important that all organisations seeking to submit a tender understand the tendering definition and how the tender process works.

Most importantly, tendering is a competition. To win a tender, the bidder with the Most Advantageous Tender (MAT) and will win the contract after being selected through the tendering process to work with the buyer on the contract. But when your goal is to win a tender, it is essential to submit a personalised proposal that not only meets the buyer’s requirements but also stands out as the best value option.

At Executive Compass, our team of expert bid writing consultants has the knowledge and experience to win a tender, including for government contracts and other public sector contracts. We have worked with many clients who have required external support during the tendering process.

Our expert bid writers have created a guide of essential top tips on how to win a tender.

How to win a tender

To win a tender, you firstly need to know how to write a tender.

To be successful at bid writing – and therefore secure a tender – you must work with a specialist bid writer. Bid writers are responsible for responding to SQ/PSQ, bid or tender documents, which includes researching client requirements, gathering relevant company information and expressing a clear and competitive case for why the organisation in question is the best fit for the tender contract.

Not only do bid writers need to be excellent writers with an ability to combine technical accuracy with engaging storytelling, but they also need to support organisations with services like bid management  and bid review.

You may have an in-house bid writer who is embedded into your organisation or you may prefer to receive support from an external bid writing company, like Executive Compass.

1. Review your chances of winning a tender

To maximise your chances of success in securing a contract, the first place to start in the overall tendering process is identifying suitable and correct tender opportunities for your organisation. Before you begin writing your tender, you must undertake a thorough review of the tender opportunity by examining the specific evaluation and qualification criteria, to ensure your organisation is properly equipped and prepared to handle the contract. This is commonly known as the bid/no-bid decision.

At this stage, you can assess your potential competitors, thoroughly analyse the specification and the buyer’s strategic goals, and review your company’s experience and unique strengths. This will help you decide whether the contract is a suitable and valuable opportunity for your business.

For example, ensure you meet the mandatory minimum criteria such as a financial threshold, or holding the correct accreditations – if not, the tender opportunity may be a non-starter. Recognising the public sector’s inherently risk-averse nature is essential. For this reason, bidding organisations must ensure they meet all criteria and demonstrate a strong track record. It is vital to factor this consideration into your assessment process so you can maximise your chances to win a tender.

Even the most advanced bid writing techniques cannot compensate for a poor bid choice. If you meet the minimum requirements but don’t think you have the experience, resources, or skills to win the tender, you may need to “no bid.” Be realistic in your analysis and decision-making, as this can save valuable time that could be used to improve more competitive submissions.

Taking a more strategic approach to bidding will improve your success rate and be a better allocation of both time and resources. A clear and honest review of whether your business can meet the requirements of the contract will also help you avoid overextending your business’ abilities or wasting resources on the tendering process, ultimately helping you further your chances to win a tender.

2. Tender writing and planning to win a tender

Understanding how to write a tender is a crucial in helping you win a tender.

Once you have assessed your chances of success and found them to be high, next comes the actual tender writing.  Considering how to win a tender through your writing is all about planning, being persuasive and always keeping the wording of the question set in mind.

Before you start bid writing, it is important to bid plan for quality responses and allow sufficient time to complete your tender responses. To help the bid writing process, deconstruct each question into a few bullet points to ensure you maintain focus on the question and keep the plan manageable. Considering bid win themes to help you write a winning tender can help your bid stand out from other bidders. These themes may include value for money, incumbent supplier status, tailoring works or services, innovation and other items in the tender documents which are implicit key priorities for the contracting authority. This is the stage of the tender writing process where you turn your focus to technical subject matter experts within your business for their input into the responses.

Avoid the major pitfall of bid writing that mirrors the services you would like to provide; winning tenders must align with the evaluator’s expectations and the information they have requested. When answering the question, break it down into constituent parts, stick to the evaluation criteria and let these elements guide your submission for the individual opportunity in order to win a tender.

Clear and concise writing is critical during this phase. Ensure your bid reflects your organisation’s unique value, demonstrating how your capabilities directly meet the buyer’s needs. Strong evidence in the form of case studies, measurable results, or performance metrics will add credibility to your submission.

Our expert bid writers follow these steps during the tender writing process to ensure your business is best equipped to win a tender:

• Carefully review the contract specification, highlighting the key themes and priorities of the purchasing authority to create a project-specific answer plan which is tailored to the opportunity.
• Answer plan all quality responses to ensure you address all aspects of the tender question and nothing is missed or omitted. This ensures nothing is missed, helping you achieve the highest possible marks from the client’s evaluation committee.
• Raising clarification questions around anything unusual or contradictory within the specification or tender documents, ensuring you receive understanding in good time.
• Writing persuasively and emphasising the benefits of your contract-specific offerings, framing all aspects of the submission in a positive light and adhering to the evaluation guidance. Here you will use your technical expert’s information to ensure the bid writing process is specific to your business.
• Using simple, concise language within your tender, eliminating technical jargon or specialised terminology to make clean, clear and easy-to-read responses.
• Provide evidence-based information to substantiate your claims within a tender submission, in the form of case studies, KPIs and statistics from previous contracts to demonstrate your business’ capacity, capability and suitability.

It is also crucial to ensure sufficient quality assurance processes cover each element of the tender submission documents before a final draft enters the proofreading stage. An impartial member of your bid writing team or an external bid consultancy should undertake bid reviews for each response, providing comments and suggestions as needed.

3. Tender pricing

Tender pricing plays a critical role in determining whether your submission is successful and you win a tender.

Submissions should have a delicate balance between competitiveness and profitability. A lower price may risk a healthy profit margin, whilst a higher price can make your bid less competitive. As well as ensuring the planning and writing aspect of the tender is effective, you should also consider price vs quality in a tender to help you win a tender.

Get your price right by ensuring that your costings are transparent, presenting the buyer with a cost aligned to a budget and expectation. Where possible, always provide detailed breakdowns, explaining the value behind each cost element. Within quality responses, highlight any additional benefits or cost-saving measures your business can offer, such as long-term efficiencies, sustainability practices, or innovative budgeting strategies that demonstrate your ability to deliver value while controlling costs effectively.

Review the evaluation criteria to understand how pricing will be evaluated against the quality of proposals. This shall enable you to make a submission that represents not only value but also quality.

Finally, double-check your calculations and ensure all financial documents are completed accurately. Errors in pricing can result in disqualification or weaken your bid’s credibility.

4 . Ensure you cover the ‘must-haves’ in your tender responses

It is good practice in bid writing to ensure your tender submission includes everything the buyer has requested in a clear and accessible format to remain compliant and ultimately win the tender.

Typically, this will be the following:

• Trading history, including trading name, duration of trading, turnover and fiscal health, demonstrating your business is in good financial standing.
• Relevant experience, usually shown in case studies that are relevant to the tender contract. These can be both public and private sector case studies. Please note that when using case studies to demonstrate technical and professional ability, the organisations used as case studies might be contacted to provide a reference.
• All suitable memberships and certifications for your industry sector – for example, Care Quality Commission for health and social care or Gas Safe registration for gas servicing.
• A unique selling point (USP) to set your company apart from competitors, also known in bid writing as bid ‘win themes’
• Solid organisational structure and appropriate staff for the contract, emphasising their relevant experience, qualifications and skills
• A competitive price. We focus heavily on the quality element of a tender, but you must also ensure you complete all pricing documents and submit your best price, to maximise your chance of success.

Additionally, consider how well your organisation aligns with the buyer’s broader goals, such as sustainability, local impact, or innovation. Highlighting these factors can strengthen your bid and demonstrate added value, supporting you to win a tender for public sector contracts.

5 . Bid review

The bid review process, also referred to as a critical friend review or red review, applies to two stages of tendering. Firstly, when submitting the bid, ask someone from your organisation who has not been involved in bid writing to review the key elements, such as:

• Does it answer the questions in full?
• Have we portrayed ourselves favourably?
• Have all the documents been completed and attachments provided?

This will provide a good foundation for self-verification that you have submitted a potentially winning bid.

External bid writing specialists, like our team of consultants at Executive Compass, can also support you with the bid review process, helping you understand where to improve and how, to help you win a tender.

If there is an occasion when you are not successful with a bid, you can submit a tender challenge for an unsuccessful outcome to challenge the decision. If you do receive an unsuccessful result, you should always try to learn from unsuccessful tender feedback to help you improve for next time, since continual improvement is crucial when considering how to win a tender.

To help drive this continual improvement and aid in achieving higher success rates the next time you respond to an Invitation to Tender (ITT), you should:

• Always request feedback from the public sector buying authority – it will support your organisation’s learning and development, enabling you to improve scores and ultimately win a tender.
• Undertake a post-bid review to determine what scored well and what didn’t, making sure this is noted when repurposing content for future submissions.
• Review underperforming areas for your bid and actions, like your social value strategy or case studies, and allocate appropriate time to complete.
• Enlist support or improvement plans ahead of the next bid – do not leave it until the last minute, particularly as public sector tenders typically have a four-week submission window.
• Review your tender writing – do the style, win themes and formatting support the strongest possible submission?

Reviewing these mistakes and understanding where you need to improve for next time will increase your chances on the next tender opportunity and help you win a tender.

Executive Compass can help you win a tender

At Executive Compass, we offer a range of services to help you win a tender, including bid and tender writing, bid management, bid review and interim bid support. If you feel like your organisation will benefit from working with an external team of bid writers or if your in-house team doesn’t consist of a bid writer, we have a success rate in excess of 85% with over 16 years of experience.

We are ideally positioned to support your organisation to win a tender and reach that next step. Call us for free on 0800 612 5563 or contact us online to discover how we can tailor our services to suit your business needs and be your bid and tender writing partner to help you win your next contract.