When it comes to complex services, the quoted price alone does not determine future success. Equally important are a clear description of services, reliable quantities and areas, realistic response times, a comprehensible quality assessment, and clearly defined responsibilities.
This applies to facility management and building services just as much as it does to commercial outsourcing, technical services, personnel deployment, or other recurring services.
Unclear tender documents often lead to bids based on different assumptions. On paper, the prices may appear comparable. In reality, however, bidders are calculating different scopes of work, staffing levels, or risk positions. By the time implementation begins, you are already facing addendums, quality disputes, and economic pressure.
Professional tender management therefore creates a common basis for decision-making before publication or bid submission.
The service description as a commercial foundation
A service description should not merely list which activities are generally expected. It must be structured in such a way that companies can understand the effort involved, calculate it, and translate it into a verifiable performance concept.
For public procurement procedures, Section 31 of the VgV stipulates that performance or functional requirements should convey a clear picture of the contract subject matter and enable sufficiently comparable bids. In addition to specific requirements, the regulation also permits a description of the task to be solved. Individual standard
In practice, a reliable tender basis should include, among other things, the following information:
- Service locations, areas, quantities, and types of use
- Operating, service, and access times
- Service intervals and quality requirements
- Required qualifications and permits
- Interfaces with clients and other service providers
- Documentation and reporting obligations
- Response, rectification, and escalation times
- Planned contract duration and potential changes
- Price structure as well as rules for optional services
Especially with long-term service contracts, it should also be determined how changes in quantities, new locations, special services, and changed operating times are handled.
Describe the activity or the result?
A key decision is whether individual activities should be specified in detail or whether measurable results should be described.
An activity-oriented tender, for example, prescribes which work is to be carried out at what interval. A results-oriented description, on the other hand, defines the expected condition and the associated quality indicators. In many projects, a combination is recommended.
For building cleaning services, fixed intervals for sensitive areas could be combined with quality metrics for generally used areas. For commercial back-office tasks, binding processing deadlines can be combined with a defined error rate and regular reporting.
It is crucial that requirements can be objectively verified. Terms such as "regularly," "promptly," "sufficient," or "high quality" are rarely sufficient for this without further concretization.
Consider suitability and bid quality separately
A common conceptual error occurs when suitability requirements and award criteria are mixed.
In principle, the suitability check answers whether a company can fulfill the contract professionally, economically, and organizationally. Award criteria subsequently evaluate the quality of the specific bid.
In public procurement law, the contract is awarded to the most economical bid. According to Section 127 of the GWB, this is determined by the best price-performance ratio. In addition to price or costs, qualitative, environmental, and social aspects may also be taken into account. The criteria must be linked to the subject of the contract, be verifiable, and be announced in advance, including their weighting. Individual standard
For a service, for example, these areas could be evaluated:
| Evaluation area | Possible evidence |
|---|---|
| Price and costs | Price sheet, hourly and unit prices |
| Implementation concept | Schedule, performance methodology, transition concept |
| Personnel organization | Roles, substitutes, qualifications |
| Quality assurance | Controls, KPIs, measure management |
| Responsiveness | Escalation paths, on-call duty, response times |
| Sustainability | Contract-related measures and documentable goals |
Every criterion requires an understandable evaluation scale. It should be identifiable in advance which answer merely meets the minimum requirement and which additional content leads to a higher score.
Price sheets must match the service
A good price sheet reflects the economic structure of the contract. A single total price may appear simple, but it often conceals important differences in calculation.
Depending on the service, separate line items can make sense for:
- Regular basic services
- Variable quantities or units
- Special and additional services
- On-call and emergency deployments
- One-time implementation or transition costs
- Optional locations and contract components
This gives clients a better basis for scenarios and budget decisions. Bidders can calculate risks more precisely and do not have to incorporate every uncertainty into the total price as a flat rate.
It is also important for both sides to check economic viability. A conspicuously low price may indicate a particularly efficient solution. However, it can also arise from incomplete assumptions, under-planned personnel hours, or interfaces that were not taken into account.
Practical example: Tendering facility services
A company wants to re-tender infrastructure services for several locations. The first draft of the documents contains area information and a rough catalog of activities. Information on usage intensity, opening hours, security areas, and special events is missing.
On this basis, the incoming bids would only be comparable to a limited extent. One bidder calculates the work outside of operating hours, another during usage. Some providers include on-site facility management, others only central coordination.
In structured tender management, data and assumptions are therefore unified first:
- The areas are categorized by usage and quality requirements.
- Operating hours and access restrictions are added.
- Regular and special services are separated.
- Clear requirements are established for facility management, quality controls, and reporting.
- A standardized price sheet maps fixed and variable services.
- The evaluation matrix is defined before bids are received.
The result is not a longer tender for its own sake. It is a better basis for comparable bids, contract negotiations, and subsequent operational control.
Bid-or-No-Bid: Bidders also need a clear decision
Professional tender management concerns more than just the client. Before participating, companies should check whether a project fits their own strategy, organization, and risk appetite.
A sound bid-or-no-bid decision considers, for example:
- Professional and regional fit
- Available managers and operational capacities
- Required investments
- Pre-financing and payment terms
- Contract risks and liability
- Realistic profit margin
- References and probability of winning
- Strategic value of the client
As a result, resources are concentrated on tenders where a convincing and economically viable offer is possible.
Tender management as a connecting process
The principles of public procurement law emphasize competition, transparency, cost-effectiveness, proportionality, and equal treatment. Section 97 of the GWB also takes quality, innovation, as well as social and environmental aspects into account. Individual standard
Even for private-sector tenders, these basic principles offer useful guidance. A professional process connects requirements, service description, market approach, calculation, evaluation, negotiation, and handover to subsequent contract operations.
The quality of a tender is therefore not only apparent on the day of the award. It shows throughout the entire contract period: in clear services, controllable costs, measurable quality, and reliable cooperation.
Support from ELB Services
ELB Services supports companies in the preparation, structuring, and commercial monitoring of service tenders. Depending on the project, this includes analyzing existing documents, developing service and price structures, evaluation matrices, bid-or-no-bid checks, bid calculations, as well as preparing for negotiations.
Would you like to professionally prepare a tender or have a complex bid commercially reviewed? Talk to ELB Services about structured and practice-oriented support.
Note: This article serves as general professional information and does not replace legal, procurement, or tax advice. For legally relevant individual questions, appropriately qualified bodies should be consulted. Legal status of the linked sources: checked on October 5, 2026.