Finding the opportunities

As we said earlier the public procurement process has rules and regulations. These

apply to how the opportunity is advertised. The bigger the amount involved the

stricter the rules. There are certain thresholds which determine where an opportunity

can be advertised. All EU tenders over the EU threshold are published at Tenders

Electronic Daily TED

Smaller opportunities can be found here:

- Newspapers websites 
- Trade press 
- They may be sent to you in which case you should ask yourself why? (Maybe they are asking for the 3rd quotation to satisfy their internal rules)
- Main contractors
- Word of mouth
- Government websites

List of approved suppliers

These have sometimes been set up by public sector bodies to pre approve companies so they are “fit to bid”. It does not mean they will get an opportunity but it does mean usually they have been through the process of having accounts checked, references taken up and so on. In some places if you are not on the approved suppliers’ list then you cannot get work. The criteria for joining the list will be found on the website or by ringing the procurer.

Larger opportunities have to go through the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) which is a daily broadcast from the EU in Brussels. In this daily broadcast all tender opportunities over the following amounts have to be published and they go into a website known as TED (Tenders Electronic Daily):

When looking for tenders keep the search criteria wide so you do not miss something. A tender is only as good as the human being who wrote it and they do make mistakes.'

Tip for success: File the reply slip or envelope somewhere safe