infonet-economy

Since organizational customers seek to enhance transparency and comparability among vendors' solutions, tenders have become important elements of their purchasing strategies. Vendors face a high risk of failure, and given the involved resources, tender participation is now a key challenge. Despite its relevance, the literature lacks a conceptualization of vendor success in tenders. We show that the attractiveness of proposal and vendor determines the achievement of tender-related objectives. Our findings indicate that salespeople may influence vendor attractiveness by engaging in several activities during the buying process. However, opportunities to increase a specific proposal's attractiveness aside from price setting are limited.