What Are Tenders Supposed to Be?
Tenders: the elegant, bureaucratic solution to ensuring fairness, transparency, and competition in public procurement. In theory, they’re the backbone of a democratic process—designed to guarantee that public funds are spent wisely and without favoritism.
In practice? They’re an elaborate charade where everyone pretends to play by the rules, while simultaneously working out how to bend them just enough to get what they already wanted in the first place.
What Are We Even Doing Here?
Imagine this: a public sector employee needs to buy a product or service. Maybe it’s software, a consultant, or a vendor to modernize some legacy systems that were already outdated when the iPhone launched. But instead of simply making the purchase, they’re thrust into the gladiatorial arena of public tenders.
Suddenly, their job isn’t about finding the best solution—it’s about crafting criteria that justify the choice they’ve already made. They can’t just say, “We want [Vendor X] because they’re good at this.” No, no. They need to invent a maze of metrics, checkboxes, and thinly veiled proxies for “we want Vendor X.”
And the worst part? Everyone knows this. The consultants bidding on the tender know it. The competitors know it. Even the people approving the final choice know it.
It’s like a kabuki theater performance where everyone is winking at each other while pretending it’s a serious process. Why not just skip the dance and let public sector employees buy what they want?
The Developer Parallel: Bending the Rules to Get Work Done
This whole charade feels eerily familiar. It’s not unlike developers tied down by rigid processes, trying to deliver value while dodging endless approval gates. When blocked by bureaucracy, developers get creative—bypassing IT policies, spinning up shadow infrastructure, or hacking together tools to do their jobs.
And you know what? Public sector employees are no different. They’ve become masters of rule-bending:
- Need to justify an expensive software suite? Add some niche features to the tender that only that vendor can deliver.
- Want to hire a specific consultant? Make sure the criteria include “exactly 8 years of experience with a framework no one else uses.”
- Trying to avoid a competitive bidding war? Write the tender so vaguely that only one company dares to apply.
The result? Everyone wastes weeks (or months) producing and reviewing tenders that were never meant to be impartial in the first place.
Oversight vs. Overkill
Now, let’s be clear: oversight is crucial. Without transparency, we’d be inviting corruption with open arms. But there’s a difference between oversight and overkill. Right now, we’ve got a system that values performative fairness over practical results.
If the goal is to avoid corruption, fine. But does the current system actually achieve that? Or does it just create new forms of waste—burning public funds on endless tender revisions, rejections, and rebids?
Could Tenders Learn from Platform Engineering?
Here’s a thought experiment: what if tenders worked like a well-designed platform?
In platform engineering, the goal is to empower developers to get what they need quickly and efficiently, while maintaining guardrails that ensure security, compliance, and operational sanity. The entire premise is that you can’t prevent people from finding workarounds—but you can make it easier to do things the right way.
What if we applied the same philosophy to public procurement?
- Create a framework that’s simple, transparent, and flexible.
- Allow public sector employees to buy what they need, within clear parameters, without jumping through unnecessary hoops.
- Focus on outcomes, not processes. If the purchase delivers value and passes oversight, does it really matter if the tender process followed every step in the bureaucratic dance?
Conclusion: The Tender Trap
Tenders are the public sector’s equivalent of running in place—burning energy without getting anywhere. They’re a process designed to look fair, but in reality, they often just waste time and resources on an outcome that was predetermined from the start.
So here’s a challenge for the public sector: let’s stop pretending the current system works. Let’s admit that public employees, like developers, will always find ways to work around rigid processes when those processes block them from creating value.
And maybe—just maybe—we could build a system that works with them, not against them. A system that enables smart, transparent decision-making without forcing everyone to participate in a procurement pantomime.
Until then, good luck with your tenders. May your metrics be vague, your criteria conveniently tailored, and your preferred vendor miraculously qualified.