Cancelled tenders costing Irish firms €300m a year

Tenders provide €9bn in new business opportunities in Ireland but not all tenders are awarded — costing Irish companies at least €300m a year.

Figures for 2016 show that 5,191 tenders were published on the eTenders website. According to data from ted.europa.eu, 3% of these were formally cancelled. More alarming is that the status of a whopping 53% of tenders is unknown. These tenders were not formally cancelled. Although reliable statistics become scarce at this point, it’s reasonable to assume that 10% of these tenders never went ahead.

SMEs lose at least €60m a year on cancelled tenders.