Why does the tender book take longer than the award?

It’s tender season again, and many shippers have their 2027 tender book open in Excel. Someone exports this year’s orders and adds up the volumes per lane, then checks for each lane which product it carries and whether cleaning is required. The file then goes out to a list of carriers, and a few weeks later just as many filled-in versions come back, each with its own reading of the columns.

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Most of the time goes into data you already have

If you look at where the time in a tender actually goes, most of it is spent collecting and cleaning up data that already exists. The question of which carrier gets which lane comes much later. Your routes, requirements and this year’s volumes are already in your system, and for most lanes you know exactly what you pay today.

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Lanes and volumes from your own history

That was our starting point for the tender module in ONEtobeONE. You select lanes from your existing routes, and their transport mode, product and cleaning requirements are carried over with them. The module calculates the volume per lane from the past year’s order history; if you expect more on a lane, you adjust it. You invite carriers from your own network or from those already on the platform.

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No tender data before documents and certificates are in order

Before carriers can see any tender data, they have to accept your NDA and transport policy, and we check whether the required certificates are valid.

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Every bid next to today’s rate

A carrier can renew an expired certificate on the spot, so you don’t have to chase it by email. Carriers bid per lane in the same system. At the award stage you see every bid next to your current rate, and as soon as you allocate volume the tender recalculates the savings and the weighted rate.

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Spend your time on the award decision

That leaves the decision you actually want to spend your time on as a buyer or transport manager: do you take the lowest price per lane, or split the volume with a better-performing carrier and keep a second one in reserve?

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The one-minute video below takes you through it from start to finish.

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Want to see it with your own lanes? Request a free demo.