What is an invitation to bid?
Issuing an invitation to bid (also called invitation to tender, or call to bid) consists in placing potential external service providers (or contractors) in competition with each other for obtaining a contract. The invitation to bid defines the requirements of the organisation or company that issues it, as well as the precise features and characteristics to be complied with by a bid or proposal. There are different types of invitation to bid: – selective (or restricted) invitation to bid (open to competitive bidding, but bids may only be submitted by a limited number of preselected potential contractors); – open invitation to bid (open to competitive bidding without prior selection after publication in the press). It also specifies the supporting documents that must be presented by the applicant contractors and the selection criteria applicable to the received bids. The contractor which is the best bidder or the lowest bidder may be chosen: – the “lowest bidding” contractor is that whi
