Call for bids

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For the locomotive car, see Tender locomotive.

Calls for bids or calls for tenders or invitations to tender (ITT) (often called tenders for short) are special procedures to generate competing offers from different bidders looking to obtain an award of business activity in works, supply, or service contracts. They are usually preceded by a prequalification questionnaire (PQQ).

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[edit] Types of calls for bids

"Open tenders", in other words open calls for tenders, also called advertised tenders, are open to all vendors or contractors who can guarantee performance.

"Restricted tenders", in other words restricted calls for tenders, also called invited tenders, prequalified, short-listed, or selective tenders, are only open to selected prequalified vendors or contractors. Example: ad and results.

There are 3 main procedures when tendering for European contracts that are above a certain level cost:

  • Open procedure
  • Restricted procedure
  • Negotiated procedure

Each of them work in different ways. [1]

[edit] Locating tenders

European tender documents above the EU threshold are released on the Official Journal of The European Union (OJEU); previuously called the OJEC or Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) for free. A number of companies provide subscription alert services which send notification of relevant tender documents to the subscriber.

Every Public Sector organisation within the EU is legally obliged to release tenders for works and services above set thresholds. In the majority of cases these are listed on their websites.

An array of private organisation also assist businesses in finding out about these tenders. Cost may vary from a few of pounds a week to a few hundred.

Because of the special language and sometimes difficult to grasp procedures, some organisations also offer companies with Tender writing training or do the writing for them. Workshops run either for half a day or 1 day and you should have enough there to have a good understanding of what is expected of you when tendering.

[edit] Origin of the term

Dictionaries explain the etymology as coming from Old French tendre, which means "to offer". The following is apparently a false etymology:

When merchant ships arrived at a port of call, they would post a notice describing the goods they wished to buy or sell. This notice was delivered ahead of the ship by a tender—a small boat—and hence the process became known as tendering.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Further details can be found on the European Website SIMAP contains extensive information about tender processes. For something in layman terms you can also refer to the FAQ on tendering

[edit] See also

[edit] External links