The question every bid team asks
"Who won last time? At what price?"
This is the most common question in government sales. It comes up in every bid/no-bid meeting, every pipeline review, every market entry discussion. The answer determines whether a contract is worth pursuing, what price to target, and which competitors to plan around.
Most teams cannot answer it. They rely on memory, anecdote, or a quick search that turns up nothing useful. The data exists. It is public. EU Directive 2014/24/EU requires contracting authorities to publish contract award notices for every above-threshold procurement. National transparency laws extend this to many below-threshold contracts.
But "public" does not mean "accessible." Award data is scattered across 300+ platforms, published in inconsistent formats, and rarely linked to the original tender. Turning raw award notices into usable competitive intelligence requires knowing where to look, what to extract, and how to interpret what you find.
Why award history matters
Award data answers three strategic questions that no other procurement data source can.
Incumbent identification
Government buyers are creatures of habit. A contracting authority that bought IT consulting from Supplier X three years ago is likely to prefer Supplier X again — unless the relationship went badly. Knowing the incumbent tells you whether you are displacing a known provider or competing in an open field.
Incumbency matters more in procurement than in most markets. Government buyers face institutional risk when switching suppliers. A new supplier means new onboarding, new integration, new performance risk. The incumbent has a relationship, a track record, and institutional knowledge that no proposal document can replicate.
Duke's data across 61.5M+ procedures shows that incumbents win re-competitions at rates between 60% and 75%, depending on sector and contract complexity. That does not mean you should avoid incumbent-held contracts. It means you should price the displacement cost into your bid/no-bid calculation.
Budget estimation
The most reliable predictor of a future contract's value is the value of the contract it replaces. Government budgets are sticky. A buyer that spent 2.4M EUR on facilities management last cycle is unlikely to budget 800K EUR this time — and equally unlikely to budget 5M EUR unless scope has changed substantially.
Award history gives you a pricing anchor before the new tender is even published. You can estimate the likely contract value, model your margin at that price point, and decide whether the pursuit is economically viable — all before investing a single hour in bid preparation.
Competition assessment
Award notices report the number of tenders received. This single field transforms your understanding of a market. A category where most contracts attract 2-3 bidders is fundamentally different from one where 8-12 suppliers compete on every opportunity.
Low bidder counts suggest barriers to entry, niche requirements, or buyer relationships that discourage competition. High bidder counts suggest commoditized markets where price dominates. Both are useful signals. Neither is visible without award data.
Where to find award data
Award data lives in three tiers of sources, each with different coverage and quality characteristics.
Tier 1: TED (EU above-threshold)
TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) is the definitive source for EU above-threshold awards. Every EU member state must publish award notices on TED for contracts above the directive thresholds — approximately 143K EUR for central government supplies and services, 221K EUR for sub-central authorities, and 5.5M EUR for works.
TED's archive extends back to 2006 in structured electronic format. The data is standardized via eForms (since 2023) and includes buyer identity, winner identity, contract value, CPV codes, number of tenders received, and procedure type.
TED's limitation is scope. It covers only above-threshold procurement — roughly 30-40% of total contract volume by number of procedures.
Tier 2: National procurement portals
Each country operates its own procurement platform, and most publish award data for below-threshold contracts. Coverage, format, and historical depth vary dramatically.
Well-structured national sources:
- Germany: 14 national platforms (CosinexNRW, BayVeBe, eVergabe, NetServer, and others) publish award data for below-threshold contracts. Duke tracks 782K German procedures, of which 308K are below TED threshold.
- France: DECP (Donnees Essentielles de la Commande Publique) captures 192K+ procedures with award data, supplemented by BOAMP, AJI, and 15 additional platforms.
- United States: USASpending.gov and SAM.gov provide detailed award data for federal contracts, with history extending back to the early 2000s. State and local procurement portals add further depth.
- Norway: Doffin publishes awards for Norwegian national procedures.
- Finland: Hilma covers Finnish tenders at all threshold levels.
- Australia: AusTender provides structured OCDS-format award data for Commonwealth procurements.
Fragmented or limited sources:
Some countries publish award results only as unstructured PDF announcements, press releases, or bulletin entries that are difficult to search and impossible to analyze at scale. Others publish partial data — winner name but no value, or value but no bidder count.
Tier 3: Freedom of information and transparency portals
For contracts where award data is not proactively published, freedom of information (FOI) requests can fill gaps. Most EU member states and the US, Canada, and Australia have FOI frameworks that allow anyone to request procurement records.
FOI is a slow, manual process. Response times range from 20 to 60 business days in most jurisdictions. But for high-value opportunities where award history is critical to your strategy, a single FOI request can yield detailed information — including evaluation scores, ranking, and sometimes even competitor pricing — that is never published in standard award notices.
What award data tells you
A single award notice is an anecdote. A hundred award notices across similar contracts, buyers, or suppliers become a dataset. The value of award history scales with volume and structure.
Winner identity and market share
Tracking who wins contracts in your sector reveals market structure. In many government markets, 3-5 suppliers capture 60-80% of contract value. Knowing these players — their strengths, their pricing patterns, their buyer relationships — is the foundation of competitive strategy.
Award data also reveals market dynamics over time. A supplier that held 30% market share two years ago but has dropped to 15% may be struggling with delivery. A new entrant that has won three contracts in the past six months is gaining momentum. These patterns are invisible without historical tracking.
Contract value and pricing trends
Award values establish the pricing range for a market segment. By collecting award data across similar contracts — same CPV codes, similar scope, comparable buyer types — you build a pricing benchmark that is more reliable than any estimate.
Pricing trends over time reveal whether a market is inflating or compressing. If average award values for a category have declined 12% over three years, the market is commoditizing. If they have risen 20%, scope is expanding or competition is thinning. Both trends affect your go/no-go calculus.
Number of bidders and competition intensity
The bidder count in award notices is the simplest measure of competition. Duke's analysis across EU markets shows meaningful variation:
- Low competition (1-3 bidders): Common in specialized sectors — defence systems, medical devices, niche IT. Suggests high barriers to entry and strong incumbent advantage.
- Moderate competition (4-6 bidders): Typical for professional services, standard IT, and facilities management. Healthy competition where differentiation matters.
- High competition (7+ bidders): Common in commoditized categories — office supplies, cleaning services, standard construction. Price-driven markets with thin margins.
Tracking bidder counts over time for a specific buyer or category reveals whether markets are opening or closing. A declining trend suggests consolidation. A rising trend suggests growing awareness or lowered barriers.
Re-competition patterns and contract cycles
Government contracts have natural renewal cycles. A 3-year IT outsourcing contract awarded in 2023 will likely be re-competed in 2025 or 2026. Award history lets you predict when re-competitions will appear — often months before the buyer publishes a prior information notice or contract notice.
This predictive capability is the single highest-value application of award data. Knowing that a 4M EUR contract is due for re-competition in Q3 gives you time to research the buyer, build relationships, develop your solution, and position your team — all while competitors are still waiting for the contract notice to appear on TED.
How to use award history for bid/no-bid decisions
The bid/no-bid decision is the most consequential choice in government sales. Pursuing the wrong opportunities costs more than losing them — it consumes bid resources that could have been deployed against winnable contracts.
Award history sharpens this decision across four dimensions.
1. Is the contract economically viable?
Historical award values tell you the likely price range before the tender is published. If the last three similar contracts were awarded between 1.8M and 2.3M EUR, and your minimum viable price is 2.5M EUR, you have a problem. Either your cost structure does not fit this market, or you need a differentiated value proposition that justifies a premium.
2. Can you displace the incumbent?
If the same supplier has won the last two contract cycles, you are facing an entrenched incumbent. This is not a reason to walk away automatically — incumbents do lose. But it changes your strategy. You need a clear answer to: "Why would this buyer switch?" If you do not have one, your resources are better deployed elsewhere.
3. Is the competition level manageable?
A contract that attracted 12 bidders last time is a different prospect than one that attracted 3. High bidder counts mean lower win probability and likely price pressure. If your differentiation is weak and the competition is strong, the expected return on bid investment may be negative.
4. Does the contract fit your track record?
Award history for your own company is just as valuable as competitor data. If you have won 4 of 6 bids in a particular category or with a particular buyer, that track record suggests a strong fit. If you have lost 5 of 5, the data is telling you something. Listen to it.
Limitations and gaps in public award data
Award data is powerful but imperfect. Understanding its limitations prevents overconfidence in conclusions drawn from incomplete information.
Missing values
Across Duke's dataset of 61.5M+ records, 15-20% of award notices omit the contract value entirely or report it as zero. This is more common in certain countries and sectors. Framework agreement call-offs — which represent a significant portion of procurement spending — frequently lack published values.
Delayed publication
EU rules require award notices within 30 days of contract award. In practice, delays of 2-6 months are common. Some authorities publish awards only when prompted by audit or oversight bodies. This means award data often reflects the market as it was, not as it is.
Entity inconsistency
The same company appears under different names, identifiers, and legal entities across different award notices. "Siemens AG," "Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics," and "SIEMENS" might all refer to the same corporate group — or to genuinely separate entities with different capabilities. Without entity resolution, market share analysis can be misleading.
Below-threshold gaps
Below EU thresholds, publication requirements weaken or disappear entirely. The smaller the contract, the less likely it is to appear in any structured database. This creates a systematic bias: award data overrepresents large contracts and underrepresents the SME-oriented market.
Defence and security exemptions
Defence procurement is largely exempt from standard transparency requirements. Award data for military and security contracts is sparse, delayed, or classified. Suppliers in these sectors must rely on industry intelligence, trade publications, and direct relationships rather than public award databases.
Building a systematic award tracking process
Occasional award searches answer tactical questions. Systematic tracking answers strategic ones. The difference is between knowing who won a specific contract and understanding how your market is evolving.
Step 1: Define your tracking scope
Start with CPV codes, geographies, and buyer types that match your target market. A narrow scope produces actionable intelligence. A scope that is too broad produces noise.
For a mid-sized IT services company targeting central government in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, the tracking scope might include: CPV 72000000-5 (IT services) and its sub-codes, filtered to central government buyers, with a minimum contract value of 200K EUR.
Step 2: Establish a data collection cadence
Award notices appear continuously. A monthly review is the minimum useful cadence for market tracking. Weekly reviews are appropriate for active pursuit targets — buyers you are planning to bid with in the next 6-12 months.
Manual collection from TED and national portals is feasible for a narrow scope. Beyond 2-3 countries or 5-10 CPV codes, the volume makes manual tracking impractical. This is where platforms like Duke — which indexes award notices across 30 countries and 300+ sources into a single searchable dataset — change the equation.
Step 3: Track the metrics that matter
For each contract in your scope, capture:
- Winner identity. Who won, and have they won before?
- Award value. What was the contract worth?
- Bidder count. How many companies competed?
- Award date and contract duration. When does this contract expire?
- Buyer identity. Is this a buyer you know or want to know?
Over time, these data points aggregate into a competitive map of your market: who the dominant players are, what the pricing benchmarks look like, where competition is thin, and when re-competitions are coming.
Step 4: Link awards to original tenders
An award notice in isolation tells you the outcome. The original contract notice tells you the requirements, evaluation criteria, and deadlines that produced that outcome. Linking the two gives you the full picture: what the buyer asked for, how they evaluated it, and what the winning answer looked like.
Duke links awards to their original contract notices automatically, providing full tender lifecycle visibility from publication through to award. This connection is what turns raw data into strategic intelligence.
Step 5: Feed insights into your pipeline
Award tracking is not a research exercise. It is a pipeline management tool. Every re-competition prediction should generate a pursuit record. Every new market entrant should trigger a competitive analysis. Every pricing trend should inform your capture strategy.
The companies that win consistently in government sales are not the ones with the best proposals. They are the ones who made the best decisions about which proposals to write. Award history is the dataset that makes those decisions rational.
Conclusion
The answer to "Who won last time? At what price?" is almost always available. It sits in TED, in national procurement portals, in FOI responses, and in structured databases like Duke's. The question is whether you have a systematic process for finding it, interpreting it, and acting on it.
Award history is the closest thing to a crystal ball in government procurement. It does not predict the future perfectly. But it reveals patterns — in pricing, competition, buyer behavior, and market structure — that make every subsequent decision better informed.
The bid teams that build award tracking into their standard operating procedures do not just win more contracts. They pursue fewer of the wrong ones. In a market where bid preparation costs routinely exceed 50K EUR per submission, knowing when to walk away is worth as much as knowing how to win.