A Fragmented Public Sector Marketplace

Businesses wanting to access public sector tenders should expect to encounter some challenges if they are planning to look for contracts themselves.  

The marketplace is fragmented, with opportunities scattered across a wide range of platforms, all of which have their own search tools and criteria. Tenders Direct was created to give businesses a single source tenders, ensuring they never miss a tendering opportunity. 

Below we discuss the challenges of a fragmented marketplace, and how you could benefit from a single source of tenders.

Multiple Tendering Platforms  

Public sector contracting opportunities in the UK are spread across numerous platforms like Contracts Finder, Find a Tender, sector-specific portals, and individual department websites. There are also portals for each of the UK’s devolved administrations: Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales, eTendersNI.  

It is incredibly difficult to try and keep track of relevant opportunities across all these different channels, especially as many of them offer little to no notification subscriptions – to keep you informed of new contracts. 

Limited Search Capability 

Many of these portals have different search set-ups, meaning both the criteria and tools used to find tenders are different on each portal. You could rely on keywords in one portal and CPV codes in another.  

This means you have to conduct many more searches to ensure you have use the correct criteria for each portal used. This is a particular challenge for SMEs, which may not have the resource available to frequently check all relevant portals, meaning they are more likely to miss tendering opportunities. 

Competitive distribution  

A fragmented market means some tenders are easier to find than others, creating an unbalanced competitive landscape. The easy to find opportunities on Find a Tender or those covered in the media, will have more bidders than the tenders posted quietly on local or less known portals.  

Did you know that around 12% of tenders only have 1 or 2 bidders?  

When you consider every suitable tender your businesses has missed, you realise how much greater your chances of success are with greater coverage of the market. 

A single source of public sector contracts

Tenders Direct is the UK’s most comprehensive and accurate tender alert service, where you can find all public sector contracts, both high and low-value, from one website.

With Tenders Direct, you can benefit from:

• Full coverage of the market, with access to every tender published by the public sector, including those from FTS and other portals.
• Personalised tender alerts, with details of tenders that match your specific needs and preferences, delivered to your inbox daily.
• Seamless integration with your favourite applications, allowing you to export tender details to a range of tools using our Integrate API.
• Powerful search tools, with the option to conduct market research, explore new opportunities, and gain insights into your competitors.
• Tenders Direct guarantee, providing assurance that you will never miss a tender again, thanks to our unique and proven accuracy.

Why create extra work for yourself to only access a small portion of the market? Choose Tenders Direct and maximise your chances of winning work with the public sector.