The tender notice is not the start of the work
Most bids are written under pressure.
They should not be strategised for the first time once the bid or pursuit is live. For businesses that win work through tenders, the formal tender notice can feel like the starting gun. The documents arrive, the deadline is fixed, and the team has to move quickly. In procurement language, that formal notice is often called an RFT, or Request for Tender. It tells suppliers what the client wants to buy and how it will assess the response. It is important information. It is not the beginning of the client’s thinking about the project, and it should not be the beginning of yours.
The pressure is rarely just the deadline
When a tender is released, a bid team can read the requirements, set up a response plan and start writing. The business still needs to decide whether it wants the work, why it is right for it and what it can honestly offer.
Those decisions cover far more than the wording of the submission:
the client outcome and the risks the client needs managed
the approach the business would take
the people who would lead the work
relevant experience and project results
evidence, referees and project information
partners, suppliers, capacity or location gaps
who has authority to make decisions and approve the response.
For an SME, those answers usually sit across the owner, directors, operations team and technical leads. They may be well understood individually but not written down or brought together. That is why a live tender can feel chaotic. The team is trying to decide on the work, build the business case, and write the response at the same time.
Earlier project activity gives you a better starting point
Projects usually give some indication before a formal tender is issued. Funding may be approved. A planning consent may be granted. A client may ask the market for information. A panel may be refreshed. A design, enabling or maintenance package may be released ahead of the main work. These events do not all carry the same meaning. A funding announcement can show that a project has support, without confirming the timing, scope or contract model. A consent can show that a project has cleared a hurdle, without telling you who will deliver it. Market engagement often tells you what the client is trying to learn before it decides how to buy the work.
The sensible response is not to treat every project as a future tender. Instead, decide what, if anything, the business should do with the information. That might be as little as following the project and learning about the client. It might mean preparing a relevant case study, confirming a partner or making sure the right technical person is available when the opportunity moves. It might mean deciding the work does not fit and taking it off the list. All three are useful business decisions.
Early preparation is not about getting around procurement
Good pre-positioning does not mean trying to influence a fair process or access information other suppliers do not have.
It means doing the work a well-run business should be doing anyway:
understanding the markets and clients it wants to serve
keeping relevant experience, project results and referees current
knowing where it has a strong team and where it needs support
building sensible partner and supplier relationships
making clear decisions about the opportunities worth senior time.
By the time the formal process starts, the business should be ready to make a specific, truthful and well-supported case. It should not be working out its own story for the first time.
Watch, position or pursue
Not every project deserves the same response. A funding announcement is not the same as a tender with a closing date, and a panel refresh is not the same as a confirmed work package. A simple way to decide what happens next is to place each opportunity in one of three stages.
Watch
Watch is when a project is visible, but timing, funding, scope, or route to market is too uncertain. The immediate task is to learn. Is the client in a market you want to serve? Does the project fit your size, location and type of work? What would you need to see before investing more time? Give the opportunity an owner and a review point. It does not need a bid team.
Position
Position is when the project is moving, and the business needs to decide whether it can put forward a credible response. This is the point to test the basics. Do you have the relevant experience? Is the right person available to lead the work? Do you have enough evidence? Are there partner, supplier, resource or location gaps? What does the client appear to need confidence in? The answers don't need to be a polished tender response. They do need to give the business a clear view of whether it has a legitimate reason to compete.
Pursue
Pursue when the tender is live or has a release date. The business should make a deliberate decision to bid. Consider the client outcome, commercial return, delivery capacity, competitive field and the cost of putting together a proper response. Then agree the strategy, team, evidence, responsibilities and review points. The bid team can focus on producing a response that is clear, relevant and supported by proof.
A simple place to start
Take the three projects your business is most interested in right now. For each one, write down:
whether you are watching, positioning or pursuing
why the opportunity is worth attention
the one action needed before the next decision point
the person responsible for it.
It is not a complex process, but it is a way to stop every tender feeling like it has arrived out of nowhere or the live bid becoming an ‘ambulance at the bottom of the cliff’, a rescue mission rather than a well-considered strategic pursuit.