What is at stake at the award stage
The award stage covers everything the economist and the design team do between the close of the tender period and the signature of the works contracts. It includes receiving and opening the offers, analysing them technically and financially, detecting anomalies, negotiating with contractors where that is allowed, writing the analysis report and supporting the client's decision.
Two things are at stake. On one side, selecting the contractors offering the best value, not simply the lowest price. On the other, making sure the offers retained are realistic — that the prices proposed will let the contractor honour its commitments, and that the contract awarded can be executed without major drift.
ℹ On public projects On public projects the award stage is governed by the French public procurement code. The analysis must respect the selection criteria announced in the tender rules and their weightings. Any departure from that grid exposes the client to litigation. On private projects the client has more freedom in choosing criteria, but remains subject to the general law of contract and to the duty of good faith.
Opening the offers and the comparison table
Receiving and checking
Before any analysis, the economist checks that each offer is formally admissible: a complete submission (pricing schedule or bill completed, technical statement, administrative documents), respect for the deadline, absence of arithmetical error. An incomplete offer may be set aside on public projects; on private ones the economist reports the gaps to the client before deciding what follows.
Arithmetical errors in a pricing schedule must be found and corrected according to the contractual rules in force: the unit rate prevails, and the erroneous subtotal is corrected accordingly. This check is indispensable if the comparison table is to rest on consistent recalculated amounts.
How the comparison table is structured
The comparison table is the central instrument of the analysis. For each package it sets the economist's own estimate against each candidate's offer, item by item. That breakdown reveals the items where one candidate sits significantly above or below the others, and why.
| Package / criterion | Economist's estimate (€ excl. VAT) | Contractor A (€ excl. VAT) | Contractor B (€ excl. VAT) | Contractor C (€ excl. VAT) | A vs estimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01: Structure | 210,500 | 198,400 | 224,700 | 176,200 | −5.7 % |
| 02: Roof structure and covering | 31,500 | 33,200 | 30,800 | 31,100 | +5.4 % |
| 03: Façades and external joinery | 48,700 | 51,300 | 49,200 | 44,100 | +5.3 % |
| 04: Heating and ventilation | 74,200 | 72,800 | 78,500 | 69,900 | −1.9 % |
| 05: Plumbing | 52,000 | 54,100 | 51,600 | 48,300 | +4.0 % |
| 06: Electrics, power and data | 39,800 | 41,200 | 38,700 | 35,100 | +3.5 % |
| 07: Internal finishes | 61,300 | 63,700 | 60,400 | 55,800 | +3.9 % |
| 08: External works | 22,000 | 23,500 | 21,900 | 20,100 | +6.8 % |
| TOTAL EXCL. VAT | 539,000 | 538,200 | 555,800 | 480,600 | −0.1 % |
How to read it: contractor C's overall offer is 11 % below the economist's estimate. The item-by-item analysis shows marked gaps on structure, façades and electrics — warning signals that justify a request for justification before any decision is taken.
Detecting abnormally low offers
Definition and warning thresholds
An abnormally low offer is one whose price appears so far below the other proposals, or below the reference estimate, that it raises doubt about its ability to cover the real cost of execution. It is not defined by an absolute threshold but by a set of indications: a significant gap against the median of the offers, incoherent unit rates on certain items, no justification for the savings claimed.
In practice an overall gap above 15 to 20 % against the median of the offers or the economist's estimate is a first warning. What matters more is the item-by-item analysis: an offer that looks normal overall may hide aberrant unit rates on particular items, the sign of a front-loading strategy that exposes the client to claims during construction.
Requesting justification
On public projects the procurement code requires the client to ask any candidate whose offer appears abnormally low to justify it before setting it aside. The request must be made in writing and the candidate given a period to reply.
On private projects the same prudence applies, even though the procedure is looser. The economist writes a clarification request naming the items that raise questions and asking the candidate to explain the basis of its pricing.
ℹ The risk of accepting an abnormally low offer unexamined Accepting one without understanding why it is low exposes the client to several serious risks: abandonment of the site by a contractor in financial difficulty, massive variation claims to make up the initial deficit, dispute at handover, or unpaid subcontractors. The lowest bidder is not always the least expensive — one of the fundamentals of tender analysis.
Assessing technical merit
Price is not the only criterion. The technical merit of the offer, judged through the technical statement each candidate submits, is often weighted at 30 to 40 % on public projects, and is increasingly taken into account on private ones.
What the economist looks for in the technical statement
- Understanding of the project: has the candidate grasped the specifics of the operation?
- The people and plant allocated: staffing proposed, specific equipment, qualifications.
- Comparable references: has the contractor already delivered similar projects?
- Site organisation: outline programme, management of interfaces with the other packages, safety measures.
- Any variants: alternative technical or material proposals, with their impact on price and programme.
Scoring and weighting
The economist scores each candidate on each criterion in accordance with the grid announced in the tender rules. The overall score, combining price and technical criteria according to the weighting adopted, determines the ranking. That ranking is presented transparently in the analysis report, with the justification for every score.
Negotiation
On public projects, negotiation is framed or prohibited according to the procedure chosen. Under the adapted procedure it is generally allowed. Under an open tender it is in principle excluded once the initial offers have been submitted.
On private projects negotiation is the norm. The economist supports the client by preparing the objective material for it: the items where savings are available without affecting quality, comparisons with competing offers within the limits of confidentiality, technical variants worth exploring.
What negotiation should not do
Negotiation should not be used to obtain a global price reduction without identifying the items concerned. A discount granted "across the board" by a contractor with no technical justification is often the sign that the initial margin was excessive, or that the contractor intends to recover it elsewhere through additional works during construction.
ℹ Good practice Rather than negotiating on the total, the economist targets the items where the gap against competitors is most significant, and asks the contractor to justify or revisit its pricing on those specific items. Targeted negotiation of this kind is more effective and less risky for the soundness of the contract.
The analysis report and the recommendation
The economist synthesises the analysis in a structured report, which serves as the audit trail of the award decision. It comprises:
- The complete comparison table: amounts by package and by candidate, gaps against the estimate, warning signals identified.
- The assessment of technical merit: scores by criterion, justification for the differences between candidates.
- The treatment of anomalies: detail of the abnormally low offers identified, requests for justification sent and replies received, analysis of their admissibility.
- The final ranking and the recommendation: the candidate recommended for each package, with the argument for it, and an explicit statement of any risk attached to the choice.
The report goes to the client, who alone decides the award. The economist makes a recommendation, not a decision. But a well-argued recommendation is a valuable decision tool, and a protection for the client should the award later be contested.
Tender analysis at Quostra
Quostra carries out tender analysis for every type of project and procurement: public contracts under the adapted or open procedure, private enquiries on single or multiple packages. The assignment covers opening the offers, building the comparison table, detecting abnormally low bids, supporting the negotiation and writing the analysis report.
The deliverable is a complete report in Word and a comparison table in Excel, delivered within 3 to 5 working days of receiving all the offers.
You have better things to do. Submit your project on quostra.com and an economist analyses your tenders and produces your award report within 72 working hours.
In summary
The award stage is where economic analysis takes on a directly decisional dimension. Comparing offers is not a matter of lining up figures: it means detecting anomalies, understanding pricing strategies, assessing technical merit and putting forward a reasoned recommendation. A rigorous award report is the client's best protection against financial drift during construction.