In a previous “post”, I started with this statement.
“It is known in bidding, you always have to award the contract to the lowest bidder. This explains the poor quality of the work.
In fact, the poor quality of work is rather explicable by two factors controlled by the organization that makes the call for tenders and not the winning bidder.”
I was on the legal side. In the tender documents, it is important not only to mention which laws apply, among others, those of your country or region. In some cases, the laws of a third country are used. It is desirable to clearly specify all the processes surrounding cases of bad agreement. Do you want to use an arbitration mode, so who will choose the referee? And when? The arbitration will be final or there will be the possibility to challenge in court and in which court? Local or international.
Do you wish to have some form of security as to the complete fulfillment of the mandate? If so, in what forms: insurance, bail, etc.
The key members of the achievement team, you can require the proposal to have the CVs of these people. A penalty can also be associated with their unavailability.
Obviously, the winner of the tender will be paid. Many methods exist, I will not go around here. How will the payments be made? Again, there is no one approach. Is a sufficient amount kept until the contract is completed to the satisfaction of your company? This amount will be returned on final delivery or after commissioning.
Will the product of the call for tenders have a guarantee of durability or performance? A simple and common example, think about the reasonable life of roads or markings on the roads. Is it normal to have to repair or redo them before their first birthday? You must specify it, your bidders will be indebted to it, it would even be possible for you to retain the last amount until this period.
Before ending this overview of the tenders. Two often underutilized tools are bonuses and penalties. Each is a powerful tool to meet the dates of commissioning.
Some very public examples exist. For the bonus, I’m thinking of rebuilding a highway in California, the contractor had gotten millions of dollars for delivering more than a week in advance. You may have cases to share.