5 Questions About International Tenders

The internationalization of companies is becoming more than an opportunity, a real obligation for the survival of businesses. The entry into international public competitions requires a structural change in companies, which requires a trained structure that redesigns the traditional business model.

Now more than ever, companies need professionals who are able to detect business opportunities in the multilateral and international markets, to negotiate these opportunities, to hire them, to manage projects in an international environment and, of course, to obtain an economic performance that I assure you of its continuity. If your company is interested in participating in an international tender, then we answer 5 questions that can be very useful.



1. What is an international tender?

An international tender is a process of selecting and awarding contracts through which bids are requested and evaluated for the acquisition of goods, works and / or services. The contract is awarded to the company that offers the most advantageous proposal, according to the established evaluation criteria.

2. What are the evaluation criteria?

Generally, the selection of the winning bidder is based on:
Demonstrable technical capabilities
Best value for money
In order to participate successfully, in addition, the company must be aware of the efforts that must be made both in time and money, as well as the obstacles that may be encountered along the way.

3. What types of tender are there?

The competitions can be of three types according to the multilateral organisms that summon them, and each one carries requirements, scope and adopts different forms:
  • Construction contests
  • Real estate supply contests
  • Service contests
On the other hand, according to the form of bidding, tenders financed by international organizations can be of four types:

Open Tenders:  the most common in tenders for works and supply of goods. Final offers must be prepared according to the specifications indicated in the tender (tender dossier).

Restricted Contests (restricted tenders):  usual in services and goods or very technical works. The contest to prequalify is launched and on the expressions of interest received several companies are invited in a short list to prepare proposals, both technical and economic.

Framework Contracts:  every day more used for usual contracts of administrations. It has accelerated deadlines and procedures, and generally the price range is already fixed in the tender dossier.

Grants (grants):  projects usually co-financed, where the beneficiary or executing agency has to contribute funds. They are common in projects with administrations, associations and non-profit entities.

4. Why can your company be interested?

The multilateral market of international tenders is an alternative for the internationalization of a company that ensures both transparency in the awarding process and the collection during the execution of the project, since the payers are international entities of great solvency.

5. What agencies are responsible for financing these projects?

There are Multilateral Organizations or International Financial Institutions that dedicate annually a very important part of their budget to the endowment of funds for the realization of projects that contribute to the development of emerging and developing countries.

These organisms and institutions are grouped in:

  • World Bank Group and Development Banks
  • United Nations
  • European Union

Other institutions that allocate funds for these purposes with bilateral aid are AECI (Spanish Agency for International Cooperation), GTZ (German Agency for Technical Cooperation) and USAID (United States Agency for International Development), among others.

The projects financed by the Multilateral Organizations are convened through international public tenders of services, works and supplies, and are executed by companies of the member countries, taking advantage of the contributions that governments make to these organizations.

Approximately, the annual amount of the total contracts included in projects financed by these organizations amounts to around 50,000 million dollars. For this reason, it seems very unwise to ignore the existence of a market of such dimension.

If these five aspects of international tenders have been useful to you ... you are encouraged to obtain an international license.

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