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🔍 Loss analysis: learn from the bids you didn't win

Keep the award decision letter, request access to the winning bid, register the reason for the loss, and find the patterns in what you lose on.

Written by Even Dalen

A lost bid is the most concrete feedback you get in public procurement: a written explanation of why someone else won. This article shows how to turn that explanation into something your team can learn from in Cobrief.

If you want to read about the rules behind it – the right to a justification, the standstill period, the access-to-documents rules, and when a complaint is worth it – you'll find that in Did you lose the bid? How to learn from the tenders you didn't win (in Norwegian).

Registering results and uploading result documents requires a paid plan. Everyone in the workspace can see the result, but you need permission to manage procurements in order to register and edit it. Read more about roles and permissions.

1. Keep the award decision letter right away

The award decision letter is the starting point for the whole analysis. Put it on the procurement in Cobrief instead of leaving it in one person's inbox.

  1. Move the procurement to Lost in the pipeline or from the procurement page. The “Register result” dialog opens automatically.

  2. Drag the award decision letter into the upload field, or click “Select files”.

  3. Click “Save”.

Cobrief detects the document type automatically and labels the file “Award decision letter”. Read more in Register results and upload award decision letters.

2. Set a reason for the loss you can count

The reason for the loss is what turns many individual losses into a pattern you can act on. Pick the one that fits best:

  • Price

  • Quality

  • References and experience

  • Not qualified

  • Rejected – deviation in the tender

  • Other

  • Don't know yet

If the justification is too thin to answer at the moment the result arrives, choose “Don't know yet” and write down what you're wondering about in the comment field. That way the procurement is ready to be updated once you know more.

3. Use the standstill period to request access

There is a standstill period between the award decision letter and the signing of the contract. That's when you have time to ask for a more detailed justification, and to ask the buyer for access to the procurement record and to the winning bid.

You send the access request directly to the buyer, not through Cobrief. The standstill period is stated in the award decision letter, so it pays to read the deadline as soon as the document has been uploaded.

Need a refresher on what the award decision letter should contain and which deadlines apply? See What is an award decision letter?

4. Upload the disclosed documents to the same procurement

When the buyer responds to your access request, put the documents on the procurement:

  1. Open the procurement and go to Result.

  2. Click “Add more documents”.

  3. Upload the procurement record and the winning bid exactly as you received them, redactions and all.

These files are labeled “Access to competitors' bids”, so it's clear what is competitor material and what is your own.

Click “Edit” to update the outcome now that you know more – typically replacing “Don't know yet” with the actual reason for the loss, and adding a comment about what the winner did differently.

5. Compare with the public notice

When the buyer announces the award publicly, it also appears on the procurement under Result in a separate block labeled “From Doffin”. There you'll see the winner, the contract value, and the number of bids as announced, and you can compare it with what you registered yourselves.

If the contract value is much higher than what you priced against, it's often worth taking a closer look at how the competition was actually priced. Read more in Follow result notices in Cobrief.

6. Look for patterns over time

Under Pipeline → Results, your team gets a combined overview of won and lost procurements, including the most common reason for loss once you have registered enough results.

This is where the loss analysis starts giving you answers you can act on:

  • Do you always lose on the same criterion? Then you've found your next improvement project.

  • Do you lose most often on Not qualified or Rejected – deviation in the tender? Then the problem is your routines, not your bid.

  • Do you lose on price in competitions you shouldn't have bid on in the first place? Then it's the procurement search that needs adjusting, not the bid text.

7. Let the agent do the analysis

The agent can read the results you have registered, and search the award decision letters and disclosed competitor documents on your procurements. That means you can ask instead of digging:

  • "What has been our most common reason for losing over the past year, and which competitions does it apply to?"

  • "Summarize what the justifications say about our price level."

  • "What do the disclosed documents say about how the winners approached quality?"

  • "Have we ever lost on references with the same buyer twice?"

The agent always names the competition an answer comes from, so you can go back to the source.

8. Bring the lesson into your next bid

The same access is most useful when you're writing a new bid. The agent can surface what went wrong last time, instead of you having to remember it:

  • "We're bidding on Operation of case management system 2026. Look at what we've lost on in similar competitions, and suggest what we should do differently."

  • "Write the solution description, and use what we learned from the disclosed documents in Cleaning framework agreement 2025."

  • "We lost on quality the last time we bid to this buyer. Read the justification and check whether our draft answers it."

The agent only sees results someone on your team registered in the “Register result” dialog. Procurements that Cobrief moved automatically to Won or Lost don't count until the outcome has been registered. That's why steps 1 and 2 are worth the two minutes they take.

Disclosed documents are the competitors' own material, released by the buyer. They aren't added to the knowledge base and aren't used automatically when Cobrief generates bid drafts. The agent fetches them only when it needs them, and clearly marks that the content comes from a competitor.

Make loss analysis a fixed routine

  1. Register the result and upload the award decision letter as soon as it arrives.

  2. Set a reason for the loss – “Don't know yet” if the justification isn't enough yet.

  3. Ask for elaboration and access during the standstill period.

  4. Upload the disclosed documents and update the reason for the loss.

  5. Go through Pipeline → Results regularly, for example once a quarter.

  6. Ask the agent about your loss patterns before you start on the next bid in the same category.

Want different names for the steps in your pipeline? See Customize pipeline statuses.

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