Urgent bid support · situation 8 of 12
The clarification deadline has passed and the pack is ambiguous
Once the clarification window closes you are interpreting the pack rather than confirming it, and the correct technique is to answer the ambiguity openly rather than pick a reading and hope. State the interpretation you have adopted, explain briefly why it is the reasonable one, and answer against it. Evaluators are used to this and it reads as competence. What reads badly is an answer that quietly assumes one meaning and is marked against the other.
The honest bit
This situation is almost always avoidable and almost never avoided, because the ambiguity gets found during writing, which is after most suppliers have stopped thinking about clarifications. If you are reading this before your window closes, stop and read the whole pack today, hunting specifically for contradictions between documents. That single afternoon is worth more than any rescue work afterwards.
What we need to start today
- The full pack and the specific passage causing the problem
- The published clarification log, because another bidder may already have asked
- Your reading of it and why, so we are checking an interpretation rather than inventing one
- The submission deadline
When we will tell you not to bid
These are the things that make the situation undeliverable rather than merely tight. If any of them apply we will say so on the first call, before you spend anything.
- An ambiguity that goes to a mandatory requirement rather than to scoring, where a wrong reading is a compliance failure rather than lost marks
- A contradiction between the specification and the pricing schedule that changes what you are quoting for
- Too little time left to rework the response if the safer reading is the more demanding one
Questions people ask at this point
What do I do if I cannot get a tender clarified?
Answer the ambiguity in the open. State the interpretation you have adopted and why, then answer against it. Evaluators see this regularly and it reads as competence. Choosing silently and being marked against the other reading is the outcome to avoid.
Can I still ask the buyer a question after the deadline?
You can ask, and some buyers will answer a genuine point, particularly one that affects compliance rather than strategy. Do not plan on it. The published clarification log is worth re-reading first, because another bidder may have raised the same point.
The pricing schedule contradicts the specification. What now?
That is the most serious version of this problem because it changes what you are quoting for. Raise it with the buyer even after the window, state your assumption clearly in the submission, and price the reading you have stated. Call us and we will help you position it.
Tell us the deadline and we will tell you if it is doable
We respond the same day. Send the documents and the deadline and you will get a straight answer on whether it is deliverable, including if the answer is no. A bid you were never going to win costs more than the fee it would have earned.
Send us the deadline
Clarifications closed. Tell us the closing date and what you have, and we will come back the same day with whether it is deliverable.
Other situations we pick up
- A tender is due this week and nothing is written
- A private sector RFP has landed with a short deadline
- Your bid writer has dropped out mid-submission
- A framework application closes this week and you have not started
- You need to get onto a Dynamic Purchasing System quickly
- An ITT has arrived and you have no bid team