How easy is it to influence the evaluation of bids?

There is nothing wrong if the selection committee takes into account aspects other than just price or score when choosing a supplier. But the supporting documents and evaluation outputs must be objective, transparent, fair, and factually correct!

🗳️And it is precisely in the area of evaluation of supporting documents where the real problem lies. A cynic would recall the famous saying: “It’s not important how people vote, but who counts.” And in bid evaluation this, unfortunately, applies twice as much.

❗❗❗If you know how, it is frighteningly easy to influence the result of bid evaluation. All it takes is to “skillfully”:

• set the criteria (add or omit),

• play with the weighting of criteria,

• change the evaluation scales of criteria and their point values,

• be creative with the calculation method (evaluating against the best bid, a benchmark …),

• “make a mistake in the calculation formula” (who is going to check?).

An experienced manipulator will achieve exactly the result they wanted, and suddenly the preferred supplier is far ahead of all the others.

💡 During a workshop dedicated to supplier performance management, I demonstrated on the example of a typical tender how easily the result can literally be manipulated. And yet everything was carried out according to the rules, and the outcome appeared objective.

🛡️ Promitea procurement software prevents manipulation on several levels:

✅ log of all changes,

✅ library of fair criteria with clear scales and evaluation guidelines,

✅ ability to create binding evaluation templates with fixed criteria, weights, and calculations,

✅ certainty that no criterion is “forgotten,”

✅ guarantee of correct mathematical calculation.