What is Tender Discovery?
Tender discovery is the process of identifying relevant public procurement opportunities published by government agencies and public sector organizations. It involves monitoring multiple procurement portals, analyzing tender documents, and qualifying opportunities that match your business capabilities.
The challenge: Government tenders are published across hundreds of different portals worldwide, each with unique formats, languages, and submission requirements. Finding the right opportunities requires systematic monitoring and careful analysis.
5-Step Manual Process
Step 1: Identify Your Target Procurement Portals
The first step is identifying which procurement portals publish tenders relevant to your business. Key portals include:
TED (Tenders Electronic Daily)
European Union's official procurement portal
SAM.gov
U.S. federal government procurement portal
Contracts Finder (UK)
UK government procurement opportunities
FTS (Find a Tender)
UK public sector procurement service
Manual Challenge
Each portal has different search interfaces, filters, and data formats. Monitoring multiple portals manually requires checking each one daily, a time-consuming process that's easy to miss opportunities.
Step 2: Set Up Search Filters and Keywords
Most procurement portals allow you to filter by multiple criteria to narrow down relevant opportunities:
CPV Codes
Standardized classification codes (e.g., 45000000 for Construction)
Geographic Location
Country, region, or city where work will be performed
Contract Value
Estimated budget range to match your business size
Publication Date
Recently published opportunities (e.g., last 7 days)
Example: Construction Company Search
- • CPV Code: 45000000 (Construction work)
- • Location: United Kingdom
- • Value: £100,000 - £5,000,000
- • Keywords: "road construction", "infrastructure"
Step 3: Review and Download Tender Documents
Once you find relevant opportunities, download the complete tender documentation. These bid packs typically include:
Technical Specifications
Detailed requirements for deliverables
Compliance Requirements
Certifications, insurance, and legal criteria
Submission Guidelines
Deadlines, format, and delivery instructions
Evaluation Criteria
How proposals will be scored and selected
Manual Challenge
Tender documents can be 100+ pages long. Reading and extracting key requirements manually takes several hours per tender, making it difficult to review multiple opportunities quickly.
Step 4: Qualify Opportunities
Not every tender is worth pursuing. Qualification involves answering critical questions:
✓ Do we meet compliance requirements?
Check certifications, insurance levels, financial thresholds
✓ Do we have the capacity?
Team availability, technical capability, geographic reach
✓ Is the opportunity profitable?
Contract value vs. bid preparation costs and delivery costs
✓ Can we compete?
Past performance, competitive landscape, win probability
Step 5: Set Up Alerts and Tracking
Many procurement portals offer email alerts for new tenders matching your criteria. However, manual alerts have limitations:
Alert Overload
Generic alerts often send too many irrelevant opportunities
Manual Filtering Required
You still need to manually review each alert to identify relevant tenders
No Centralized View
Alerts from different portals arrive separately, no unified pipeline
The Solution: Automation
AI-powered platforms monitor all portals 24/7, analyze documents automatically, and deliver only high-relevance opportunities with Go/No-Go recommendations, eliminating manual overhead.
How Automation Solves These Challenges
AI-powered tender discovery platforms automate the entire process, transforming hours of manual work into seconds of intelligent analysis:
Multi-Portal Monitoring
Automatically scan TED, SAM.gov, CanadaBuys, Contracts Finder, and more, eliminating manual daily checks across multiple portals.
Document Analysis
AI reads 100+ page bid packs and extracts key requirements, deadlines, and compliance criteria in seconds.
Automated Qualification
Compare tender requirements against your profile to identify compliance gaps and generate Go/No-Go recommendations.
Smart Alerts
Receive personalized alerts for high-potential opportunities only, reducing noise by 90% and ensuring you never miss relevant tenders.
Key Takeaways
Manual tender discovery requires daily monitoring of multiple procurement portals (TED, SAM.gov, CanadaBuys, Contracts Finder, FTS)
Use CPV codes and filters to narrow down relevant opportunities based on your industry and capabilities
Document review takes significant time, reading RFPs and extracting requirements can take hours per tender
Qualification is critical, focus on opportunities where you meet requirements and have a strong competitive position
Automation significantly reduces workload by handling portal monitoring, document analysis, and initial qualification, transforming manual hours into intelligent seconds