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ESCA Intelligence / Policy Brief

Writing urban technology tenders that SMEs can actually win

Public Services & Administration Digital Infrastructure DEMO / REPLACE WITH VERIFIED DATA

/ 5 minute read

What changed?

Nothing in the law. What has changed is the evidence base: cities that restructured lots and turnover requirements attracted more bidders without any change to the legal framework.

Why does it matter for cities?

A tender with one compliant bidder is not a competition, and the price reflects that.

What should cities do?

  1. Set turnover thresholds against the annual contract value, not the total contract value.
  2. Split lots along real technical boundaries rather than along departmental ones.
  3. Accept references from comparable work rather than identical work.
  4. Publish the specification for comment before it is final.

The exclusion is usually accidental

Few municipalities intend to write a single-supplier tender. It happens through defensive drafting: a turnover threshold set high to reduce delivery risk, a reference requirement copied from the previous procedure, a single lot because splitting is administratively harder.

What the drafting costs

Fewer bidders, higher prices, and a market that learns not to bother reading the city’s notices.

The fixes are unglamorous

They are also cheap, legal under the existing framework, and available to any authority willing to redraft rather than reuse.

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