TenderScout
Enabling Success in Public Sector Tenders

Government contracts can be a valuable source of growth and revenue for SMBs. However, these contracts are often given to the big corporations. "The average small business wins just one in four of the contracts that they compete for," says Tony Corrigan, Founder and CEO of TenderScout. The only thing that stops these SMBs from being successful is that more often than not, they do not understand the process of competing for business. “Capability with regards to delivering the service is not the issue; SMBs just don’t understand the process and the rules of how to get into the game in the first place,” says Corrigan.

Founded in 2014, Ireland-based TenderScout has built the world’s first dedicated end-to-end tender success solution.

TenderScout provides companies with information that they need to make decisions about where and when to compete for contracts. Most businesses do not know the opportunities that are out there for them and where they exist. TenderScout collates these chances from about 120 sources around the world and standardizes them on a single platform. The company has built a Machine Learning (ML) enabled algorithm that qualifies potential contracts by taking a client’s capabilities into account. This negates the issue of confusion where companies cannot decide which project should be taken up and which should be ignored.

The algorithm looks at the track record of the buyer and metadata around the particular opportunity itself. TenderScout then uses this data to understand market trends and the likelihood of that specific company being successful in that specific business opportunity.

TenderScout works with consultants from around the world that specialize in writing tender proposals. The platform connects the customers and the consultants to ensure that the tender proposal is of high-quality. “Our platform also has a SME marketplace with which you can find collaborators for particular opportunities. The reality is, smaller companies just don't have the full suite of skills necessary to deliver the service,” continues Corrigan. However, the marketplace connects these small businesses with companies that do have the skills and together, they can compete for opportunities that would have otherwise been out of reach. TenderScout incorporates its results in a spider graph, making it easy for clients to know the better opportunities. This simplicity enables clients with no experience to understand if they should compete for the tender or not.

Stratagem Media, an advertising company, has been using TenderScout’s technology platform for several years. The company identifies opportunities to underpin an internal evaluation process around which tender competitions take place. The platform enables Stratagem to compete more confidently and its bid/no bid capability, which has been embedded in the business process, ensures that decisions are not made on the fly. As a result, the company has cut 25 percent of costs by competing for opportunities that have a better chance of success. This, in turn, has increased its win rate from 30 percent to 70 percent.

The firm’s route to new markets is partnering with organisations in the geographies it wants to be successful in. In accordance with this, TenderScout has launched its service in Denmark with a partner organization, Fortem. The company also runs a series of conferences called TenderCon, where it brings together policymakers, government officials, and its clients to share their success stories. It is an "under the covers" look at the world of public sector contracts, with the hope of encouraging participation on a global scale.