Few in Norway can do public tenders better than Inventura. One thing they are sure of: With tools like Cobrief, the chances of success increase — partly because you can step outside the box to a greater extent.
Thomas Tinnesand sits in Inventura's Oslo office in Fridtjof Nansens Plass, overlooking the town hall square. He is a partner and head of sales and market, pointing out towards City Hall.
Thomas Tinnesand, Partner and Head of Sales and Marketing at Inventura.
“It feels almost symbolic that we can look straight down at one of the most iconic public buildings in the country. A big part of our job is about understanding how the public sector works and how we can navigate the tenders that are announced,” he says.
At the Stavanger office sits colleague Karl Sletbakk, jurist and Bid Manager for the public sector.
He is the one who first gets the tenders onto the table. Every day he is responsible for identifying new competitions, assessing them and passing them on in the organization.
“We deliver well over a hundred offers a year and consider maybe three times as many competitions. Then it is crucial to have processes and tools that make the job more efficient,” he says.
Inventura is today one of Norway's most experienced advisory communities in procurement.
Among other things, the company assists public contractors with needs analyses, competitive strategies and contract documents, and leads tender processes from start to finish.
At the same time, they help private suppliers navigate the public tender market — a landscape that many see as both demanding and confusing.
“We conduct large tenders on behalf of contractors, but we also participate even when the public requests procurement assistance. It gives us a unique understanding of the mechanisms in the market, and it allows us to help our customers deliver better,” says Tinnesand.
For both Tinnesand and Sletbakk, the introduction of Cobrief marks a distinct before-and-after in the way they work with tenders.
In the past, they had to go into, say, Doffin, open documents and read their way through several pages to understand what a competition was really about.
Today, they get everything right in their inbox. Cobrief extracts key parameters such as scope, requirements, duration, value and competence requirements — and makes assessment far easier.
“We followed the development closely, and when the features were in place, the time was right to switch. Now Cobrief is an integral part of how we work,” says Sletbakk.
Tinnessand nods and adds:
Titles on tenders can often be misleading, but with Cobrief, Inventura gets the context needed to distinguish relevant from irrelevant.
A classic example is when it says “excavator acquisition”. Before, Karl Sletbakk had to open the tender document to check whether it was about buying the machine - which is not relevant - or whether there was assistance in acquiring it, which is in the middle of the core.
'Now I see it in the summary in seconds, 'Sletbakk explains.
Efficiency is as much about quality as it is about speed. According to Sletbakk, Inventura saves around fifteen minutes per contest in the first-screening.
When the company considers about 300 competitions a year, that means almost two working weeks freed up.
For Tinnesand, flexibility is at least as important.
“When the cost of assessing new markets becomes lower, it becomes easier to experiment. We can test areas outside our comfort zone without tying up loads of time. It gives us a strategic advantage.
As an advisory community, Inventura has built up deep knowledge of both private and public tenders. Tinnesand and Sletbakk are happy to share their experiences with others who want to succeed in a demanding market.
Read the formal requirements carefully. In the private market, you can sometimes get away with deviations, but in public competitions you risk being rejected, says Tinnesand.
Sletbakk nods.
Many people underestimate how much time it takes to make a good offer. It doesn't hold up to using a standard presentation you would send to a private customer. You have to have quality systems, documentation and you have to adapt each offer to the individual competition. If you don't take it seriously, you'll be left out.
For both, it is clear that tools like Cobrief make the entrance easier.
Public contractors want competition. When suppliers more easily detect and understand the tenders, they get more good deals. It's certainly a gain for society,” Tinnesand says.
For businesses that want to save time creating new revenue.
Jonas Klafstad
The fact that one of the country's leading consulting companies in public procurement sees value in Cobrief is a solid feather in the hat, says co-founder and CEO of Cobrief, Jonas Klafstad. He says that the success story of Inventura is a crown example of why they started the company.
“We are incredibly proud to hear the story of Inventura. That's exactly why we started Cobrief. Inventura are experts in tenders, but even experts in the past experienced drowning in time-consuming and manual work. When we hear that they can now use their superpowers on strategy and quality rather than administration, we have succeeded,” says Klafstad.
He believes this proves one of Cobrief's most important points:
“When we remove unnecessary barriers, the best suppliers win. It's good for Inventura, good for the principals, and it's good for the community. We are incredibly proud to be a part of their tender revolution!