Are you tired of coming a close second after putting hours of time and resources into a bid or tender?
The Australian tender landscape is highly competitive – particularly in the government space. The difference between winning and losing a contract can come down to a few small marks or points on the weighting criteria. This is increasingly the case in 2026 and will continue in 2027 as the economy continues to face challenges and businesses compete for more business.
In addition to doing the big things right, such as responding to the question and complying, you need to nail all the small parts of the tender process to produce a winning tender.
Over our 35 years combined experience bid and tender writing, our team has honed our skills and strategies to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Of course, nothing beats putting in the time and effort to make your bid or tender stand out. However, it’s good to work smart as well as work hard.
Strategies and methods to increase your tender and bids win rate in 2026 and beyond
1. Get Organised
This point applies to engineering tenders, construction tenders, professional services and everything in between. Whatever industry you are from, you need to be organised in your documentation and content (as well as internal team structure). It’s a good idea to:
- Have your insurance and other certificates on-hand.
- Have easy access to your financials.
- Keep your teams Bios and CVs updated and on-hand
- Store your previous bids and tenders centrally.
2. Allocate the right staff to complete the tender (or call us here at The Tender Team)
It’s important to put the right team in place to project manage your bid as well as write it. You may have an administration worker or secretary that has strong organisational skills but whom doesn’t possess the best writing skills. They are still an asset to the tender process and can be helpful in chasing up documentation at the end, ensuring the entire document comes together and the project is managed well.
On the other hand, you may have a team member who has strong attention to detail and is a complete perfectionist. Perfect for editing, proofreading and drafting the executive summary. These team members are-well suited to the back-end of the tender process.
Resource allocation is critical and if your bid is not actively project managed, issues may arise.
3. Put relationships in place and develop them for your next tender
These are strategic relationships, which can assist in in putting forward a strong tender response. Whether you are a roofing contractor responding to a tender that requires roofing and carpentry, or you are a physiotherapist that is responding to a tender for combined physiotherapy and occupational therapy services, you need to have relationships with potential joint tender partners that you can act on in an instant.
Tenders and bids, especially government tender and bids, generally have short turnaround times, so you need to be able to put a team together quickly.
4. Attach evidence to your proposal and quantify all your claims
Ensure you attach evidence and quantify your claims. This is important as the readers and evaluators can’t take your word for everything. There is great strength and power in a supporting letter, testimonial or other proof of what you are saying in your bid. It gives your bid credibility. It makes it easier for the procurement personnel to choose you.
5. Ensure your bid is well structured and easy to read
Ensure your bid is structured and easy to read. This also helps make it easier for the reader and procurement team to award you the bid and give you a high score for each question. Procurement is hard work.
They have to sit there and read every word of hundreds of tenders. Putting key information in bullet points and making it easier to read is important as it makes it easier for them. Making it easier for the reader puts them in a positive frame of mind and increases your chances of success.
6. Always create compliance matrix to ensure you comply with all the requirements and aren’t disqualified
Create a compliance matrix and ensure you comply with all the requirements. This is more about not losing the bid than it is about winning. The reality is that there are many points of compliance for a bid or tender and you need to ensure you comply or else you can be disqualified. Once the bid is released, one of your first tasks should be to create a compliance matrix of all the requirements – and tick them off as you go.
7. Write to win your tender with positive language
Write to win. Your bid needs to project confidence and a winning approach. You need to state what you ‘will’ do for the client not what you ‘can’ do for the client. Ensure you use positive language throughout your bid so that your bid is compelling.
8. Deconstruct the questions and answer them methodically
Deconstruct the questions and then answer them. More often than not, in a tender or bid, there are question that look simple and straight forward but have multiple parts. It’s easy to fall in the trap of simply answering the question. However, you need to deconstruct the question and answer the different parts of the question individually.
This is best done with sub-headings and individual paragraphs or bullet points under each sub-heading. You can / should then complete the response with a paragraph summarising your response.
Whether it’s responding to questions in Social Procurement Frameworks in Victoria, or ensuring you cover off local content requirements in WA, you need to break down the question and provide a comprehensive response to score well.
Recent success stories that put these strategies into practice across Australia
- Winning 20M construction contract with the NSW Government for a Sydney-based construction business.
- Winning a 2M highly competitive professional services contract for a Brisbane professional services firm.
- Winning a 500,000K equipment supply contract for a bedding supplier to a national aged care group.
- Winning a 4M contract for a defence industry contract with the Australian federal government.
Call The Tender Team now on 0410 448 770 to speak with our expert tender consultants about other ways to increase your tender and bids win rate now. We provide a round-the-clock service, at great rates.
