Most companies bidding on public contracts have a hit rate of less than 20%. That means four out of five submissions are lost — including the dozens of hours invested in them. Yet there are organizations that consistently win, sometimes with a hit rate of 40% or more. What do they do differently?

After years of experience in the world of public procurement, we see five patterns that distinguish winning companies from the rest. No vague tips, but concrete strategies you can apply tomorrow.

1. Select Sharper: The GO/NO-GO Decision

The most impactful improvement you can make is not writing better — it’s choosing better.

Companies with a high hit rate don’t bid on everything. They apply a systematic GO/NO-GO assessment before investing even one hour in a submission. The three key questions:

Can we do it? Do you meet all selection criteria? Do you have the right references, certifications, and capacity? Be honest: if you barely meet two of five requirements, the chance of success is slim.

Do we know it? Do you have the substantive expertise? Have you successfully completed comparable contracts? A contracting authority doesn’t want a company that “will figure it out” — they want proven experience.

Do we want it? Does this contract fit your strategy? Is the margin healthy? Can you free up the team? Winning a contract you can’t execute profitably is worse than losing.

Those who bid on ten contracts and win three are better off than those who bid on thirty and win four. The hours you save on hopeless submissions, you invest in the contracts where you can really make a difference.

2. Know Your Competitors Before You Start Writing

Too many bidders focus exclusively on the specifications and forget the competition. But a tender is not an exam — it’s a competition. You don’t need a perfect score, you need to score better than the rest.

Before you start writing, research:

Who else is bidding? Look at previous awards for comparable contracts from the same contracting authority. You often see the same names returning. By analyzing historical award data, you know who your competitors are and how they position themselves.

What are their strengths and weaknesses? If you know competitor X is always sharp on price but scores mediocrely on approach, you know where you can differentiate. If competitor Y excels in quality but is expensive, a sharp price might get you across the finish line.

What is the market price? Through historical award amounts, you can estimate what the contracting authority expects to pay. A price 30% above the last award is almost impossible to win — regardless of your quality score.

3. Write for the Evaluator, Not for Yourself

Most submissions are evaluated by a committee of three to five people. They sometimes read ten or more tenders in a day. Think about what that means for how you write.

Make it scannable. Use clear headings that mirror the evaluation criteria from the specifications. If the specifications ask about “project organization,” “quality assurance,” and “risk management” — use exactly those headings. The evaluator shouldn’t have to search.

Be concrete and specific. The difference between a 6 and an 8 is in the details:

Vague (scores low)	Concrete (scores high)
“We communicate regularly with the client."	"Our project manager sends a weekly progress report every Monday at 9:00 AM with KPI dashboard, risk log, and action items. Bi-weekly we schedule a 45-minute steering committee meeting."
"We have extensive experience with this type of contract."	"In the past 3 years, we have completed 12 comparable projects with an average client satisfaction of 8.4/10 (see reference overview appendix C)."
"We ensure quality throughout the project."	"We use a three-layer quality system: daily check by the executor, weekly audit by the quality manager, and monthly external review per ISO 9001:2015.”

Respect page limits. If it says “maximum 5 A4 pages,” deliver 4.5 to 5 pages. Too short suggests you don’t have enough depth. Too long won’t be read — or you’ll be disqualified.

4. Use Clarification Notes Strategically

The Clarification Notes are the official channel for asking questions about the specifications. Most bidders use them only to clarify ambiguities. Smart bidders use them as a strategic instrument.

Test the boundaries of the specifications. If a requirement is unclear, ask a targeted question. The answer applies to all bidders — but you took the initiative and can better align your submission.

Signal disproportionate requirements. If the required turnover is five times the contract value, or if the required references are too specific, ask if this is proportionate. Contracting authorities are obliged to set proportionate requirements and often adjust them after a well-founded question.

Read others’ questions. The questions your competitors ask tell you something about how they interpret the specifications. Sometimes you can deduce from this which approach they’re choosing — and you can differentiate.

Mind the timing. Ask your questions well before the deadline. Those who ask questions at the last moment give the contracting authority little room to respond — and risk the notes being published too late.

5. Evaluate Systematically — Even When You Lose

Most companies stop thinking about a tender once they know the result. Won? Celebrate. Lost? Too bad, on to the next. That’s a missed opportunity.

Always ask for feedback. In public procurement, you have the right to ask why you didn’t win. Contracting authorities are obliged to justify this. Use that right — it’s free advice on how to improve.

Build an evaluation database. For each submission, record: the contracting authority, the value, your score, the winning score, and the key feedback points. After twenty submissions, you see patterns: do you consistently score lower on price? Is your approach always too vague? Are you wrong in your market selection?

Calculate your actual hit rate per segment. Maybe you win 40% of IT contracts but only 10% of construction projects. Those insights guide your GO/NO-GO decision on the next opportunity.

Share learnings internally. If your tender team consists of multiple people, organize a brief 30-minute evaluation after each important submission. What went well? What do we do differently next time? Document this so knowledge isn’t lost.

Conclusion: Discipline Wins Over Talent

The five tips above have one thing in common: they require discipline and systematization. It’s not the company with the best writers that wins the most tenders — it’s the company that works most systematically.

Sharper selection, knowing the competition, writing concretely, using clarification notes strategically, and evaluating consistently. These aren’t spectacular insights, but they are the habits that make the difference between a 15% hit rate and a 40% hit rate.

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5 Tips to Win More Tenders in 2025