Years ago, as a young sales director, I was preparing one of my first public tenders in municipal water, in Tirana, Albania.
Until then, I had mostly worked on industrial projects. You spend weeks preparing a proposal, you write it, you submit it, you negotiate. Public municipal tenders are a different world. And I was about to learn it the hard way.
One Thousand Pages, One Envelope
We were bidding in consortium with a German civil works company. Consortium agreements were new to me, and everyone told me this was the most important part of the bid. So I spent weeks on it. The owner of our partner company was a remarkable man, French-speaking, generous and a real pleasure to negotiate with. We went through every clause with our legal team, and I travelled to Tirana to close it.
Meanwhile, the offer itself was being assembled. In municipal water, offers are not ready days in advance. Engineers and proposal managers were everywhere, documents piled on every table.
The deadline was 1 pm.
Between the civil works and our own scope, the offer was close to 1,000 pages. One original, four copies. Every single page signed and stamped.
At 11:30, nobody could tell me the price.
Next to the offer, there was a separate sealed envelope containing a single sheet: the price schedule. It was the most important document of the whole submission. Nobody really knew how to fill it in. And I had never looked at it.
Fifteen minutes before leaving, I took over and we filled it in, as best we could.
The Cheapest Offer That Wasn’t
We had written a total price. The form required us to state explicitly that this price included everything: taxes, duties, all of it.
We had not written it.
The evaluation committee concluded that our price excluded taxes, and that we were therefore not the lowest bidder. Anyone opening the detailed price list inside the offer could see that everything was included. But the committee did not have to open it. They read the sheet.
We spent more than two years discussing with the authorities and trying to convince everyone involved.
And we lost. Rightly.
I had trusted. I had not checked.
The Mirror Image
A few years later, I lived the same story from the other side.
It was a major wastewater project in Bucharest. We were the lowest bidder, but the authority did not rank our offer as the most technically competent. I was convinced we were right, so we challenged the decision.
Everyone told us we were mad. A senior executive of my own group told me I was an idiot, and bet me a restaurant that I was wasting my time.
The case lasted years. We lost at first. We appealed. We went to cassation and won. Then it went all the way to the highest court.
And we won, for one simple reason. In the price form, the competitor had crossed out a line that bidders were not allowed to modify, because they had decided to do things differently.
I got my restaurant. It was not the finest table in town, but I enjoyed every bite. He was a great man.
Same lesson. Other side of the table.
Why Public Tenders Are So Rigid
Public procurement rules are not there to make bidders’ lives difficult. They exist to prevent arrangements, protect public money and guarantee that every bidder is treated the same way.
That has a direct consequence: form is substance. If a mandatory document is incomplete or modified, you are out. Not because the client dislikes you, but because any other decision could be challenged in court.
In the private sector, a strong relationship, a clever technical solution or a sharp price can make the difference. In public tenders, being the best or the cheapest is not enough. You must first be compliant.
It is a completely different strategy. And not every company knows how to play it.
What It Takes
Read the instructions to bidders as a legal document, not as an administrative annex. They tell you exactly how you will be judged.
Give one person clear ownership of compliance and price forms. Not the whole proposal team. One name.
Set an internal deadline well before the official one, so that the price schedule is completed and reviewed calmly, not fifteen minutes before leaving.
Never modify a mandatory form, even when you think your way is better. Explain it elsewhere if you must.
Have the price schedule checked by someone who did not fill it in.
Know your rights. If you have been unfairly eliminated, the procedure allows you to challenge, and sometimes to win.
Trust Does Not Exclude Control
As a young sales director, I believed my job was to handle the strategic parts and trust the team for the rest. Albania taught me otherwise.
The higher you rise, the less you can check everything. So make sure you check the few things that decide everything.
In public tenders, it is often a single sheet.
