Every morning across Europe, thousands of Bid Managers open their laptops and start the same routine - checking emails, logging into multiple tender portals, and scanning through long lists of public opportunities.

It’s work that should feel digital, modern, and efficient. Instead, it often feels stuck in 2010.

Despite billions invested in e-procurement, the reality for most suppliers, especially SMEsm is still defined by manual searching, inconsistent data, and slow, fragmented systems. The European Commission estimates that there are over 2,000 different procurement portals across the EU. Finding the right tender remains one of the most time-consuming parts of the bidding process.

This article walks through a typical day in the life of a Bid Manager (from the first login to the last spreadsheet) to show why tender hunting still feels outdated, and what must change for Europe’s procurement ecosystem to truly modernise.

The role of a bid manager in modern procurement

Bid Managers sit at the centre of public procurement for most SMEs. They’re responsible for finding the right opportunities, coordinating stakeholders, and making sure every bid meets strict deadlines and rules. It’s a mix of sales, project management, and compliance… all compressed into daily deadlines.

While procurement has moved online, the Bid Manager’s workday still involves juggling emails, spreadsheets, and half-digital workflows. They connect legal, financial, and delivery teams, often acting as the only person who sees the whole picture.

What a bid manager actually does?

A Bid Manager’s day usually starts with scanning tender alerts and ends with chasing documents. In between, they:

• Search multiple portals for new opportunities
• Filter, shortlist, and review potential bids
• Coordinate with finance and technical teams to check eligibility and capacity
• Prepare and upload documentation before deadlines

Each of these steps is critical and each is time-intensive.

Why their job matters?

Public procurement depends on competition. Every qualified bid adds value to the process. Yet, when Bid Managers spend hours searching instead of bidding, the whole market suffers.

Efficient tender management doesn’t just help one company win; it strengthens the procurement ecosystem by increasing participation and quality.

The role deserves modern tools and processes, but for now, most Bid Managers start their day the same way: opening yet another portal.

Morning: The search begins, still one portal at a time

For most Bid Managers, mornings start with a routine that hasn’t changed in over a decade. They open multiple tabs, TED, national portals, regional sites, sector-specific platforms, and begin the search.

Each portal has its own login, structure, and rules. A few offer basic filters or saved searches, but most require manual digging. As stated in intro, the European Commission reports that there are more than 2,000 different procurement portals across Europe. That means thousands of systems to navigate, each designed slightly differently, often in different languages.

Instead of automation, Bid Managers rely on persistence.

Fragmented portals and endless logins

Finding tenders should be simple, one search, one platform, one dashboard. Instead, the EU’s commitment to transparency created a maze of unconnected systems.

Every country, region, or agency publishes separately, leading to duplication, overlap, and missed opportunities. Bid Managers must manage multiple credentials and remember which portal covers which buyer or region. Even a missed login can mean a lost contract.

This isn’t efficiency; it’s endurance.

Transparency turned into complexity

Transparency was meant to help suppliers and in theory, it does. Every opportunity is public. But the volume and fragmentation make access harder, not easier.

The European Court of Auditors has warned that excessive complexity and inconsistent publication standards create barriers for SMEs. More data exists than ever before, but it’s scattered and inconsistent.

By mid-morning, a Bid Manager has already spent hours searching, and the day has barely begun.

Next comes the hardest part: sorting what they’ve found.

Midday: The filtering battle

By midday, most Bid Managers have found dozens of tenders, far too many to review in depth. The next task is to filter them down to a manageable list.

That sounds simple. In practice, it’s another exercise in frustration. Each portal uses a different interface, different categories, and different search logic. Filters that work in one system fail in another. Some allow precise searches by CPV code, value, or region; others only accept keywords.

The result: hours spent adjusting filters and scanning irrelevant results.

When “advanced search” isn’t advanced?

Despite their name, “advanced” filters often aren’t. Many portals rely on outdated taxonomies or incomplete tagging. Others require users to enter the same criteria repeatedly because saved searches don’t sync.

Bid Managers try to build consistency on their own - tracking CPV codes in Excel, setting browser bookmarks, or maintaining internal cheat sheets. What should be a data-driven task becomes a manual process of elimination.

The cost? Missed opportunities, duplicated effort, and fatigue before lunch.

The real KPI: Relevance, not volume

Quantity has long been the wrong success metric. The goal isn’t to find more tenders; it’s to find relevant ones.

A study by the OECD noted that inefficiency in procurement processes often stems from “excessive data without structured filtering”. For SMEs, every irrelevant tender reviewed is time that could have been spent preparing a winning bid.

By now, our Bid Manager has a shortlist, but it’s messy. And the alerts from the morning are starting to pile up.

The afternoon begins with the inbox.

Afternoon: Alerts, emails, and Excel chaos

The afternoon begins not with writing or reviewing proposals, but with notifications. Bid Managers switch between inboxes, dashboards, and spreadsheets, trying to keep track of what’s new and what’s urgent.

Tender alerts are supposed to simplify discovery. Instead, they often add another layer of noise.

Alerts that arrive too late

In many systems, alerts are sent in batches once or twice a day. By the time a new opportunity reaches the inbox, competitors might already be preparing a bid.

The OECD has observed that slow and inconsistent communication between procurement authorities and suppliers contributes to lower participation rates and reduced trust.

Even when alerts are timely, they’re rarely relevant. Some are too broad; others are missing key information like value, buyer, or deadline. The result is a flood of unread emails that look more like spam than strategy.

Managing information overflow

To cope, most Bid Managers revert to tools they can control - Excel sheets, shared folders, and color-coded reminders. They create columns for regions, deadlines, and status. It’s simple but fragile.

A single missed update can derail an entire bid. Version control becomes guesswork, especially in teams where multiple people track opportunities separately.

By late afternoon, the inbox is quieter, but the workload isn’t. Now comes the evening review, where everything must be organised before the day ends.

Evening: The catch-up, shortlisting and sanity checks

By the end of the day, most Bid Managers are deep in organisation mode. The goal: to make sense of what’s been found and decide what’s worth pursuing.

Shortlisting is critical. It’s where opportunities become a real pipeline, but it’s also where inefficiency peaks.

The shortlist spreadsheet problem

For many teams, the “shortlist” still lives in Excel or a shared drive. Every tender is a new row, every update another version. Information gets outdated quickly. Deadlines change, documents are updated, and portals issue new clarifications all while the spreadsheet stays static.

This manual approach makes collaboration difficult. Notes from colleagues are buried in comment threads or lost in email chains. One mistake, like deleting a row, missing a tab, overlooking a date, can mean a lost opportunity.

Why the end of the day feels like groundhog day?

Every day ends the same way it started: checking portals, chasing updates, and rewriting lists. There’s little time left for strategy, analysis, or learning.

Over time, this repetition wears teams down. What should be a strategic role becomes reactive - survival mode, not growth mode.

And yet, despite the fatigue, the system hasn’t changed. Bid Managers have digital tools but not digital progress.

That’s what makes the next question inevitable: why does tender hunting still feel stuck in 2010?

Why tender hunting still feels like 2010?

Every industry has modernised. Sales teams use CRMs that track every lead automatically. Marketing platforms analyse behaviour in real time. Logistics and finance run on integrated systems.

Procurement, meanwhile, remains fragmented and reactive.

The day-to-day of a Bid Manager shows it clearly: manual searches, scattered data, and repetitive admin still dominate.

Digital tools without true integration

Most e-procurement systems have gone digital, but not connected. They replicate offline processes online without rethinking them.

Each portal collects data in its own format. APIs rarely align. Notifications and reports can’t sync across borders. The result? More data, but less usability.

The European Court of Auditors has warned that while digitalisation has improved transparency, it hasn’t simplified participation or boosted competition.

In other words: the tools exist, but the ecosystem doesn’t.

Procurement’s paradox: Data-rich but hard to access

The EU publishes millions of procurement records each year. Yet, for most suppliers, that information might as well be hidden.

Data is scattered across thousands of platforms, stored in inconsistent formats, and often behind logins or outdated websites.

The Open Contracting Partnership notes that open data standards are still unevenly applied across Europe, limiting cross-border participation.

Until data becomes truly open and actionable, Bid Managers will keep working like it’s 2010, just with more tabs open.

But change is coming. The next phase of procurement is about smarter systems, ones that work for the people actually doing the bidding.

The path forward: Smarter systems, better workdays

Change in procurement won’t come from one new portal or another layer of rules. It will come from systems designed around how people actually work.

Tomorrow’s Bid Manager shouldn’t have to check ten portals or update five spreadsheets. The right tenders should find them automatically, complete with context, deadlines, and alerts, all in one view.

From searching to receiving

The future of tender management is proactive, not reactive. Aggregation, AI matching, and relevance scoring can replace manual searches and filtering.

Instead of browsing lists, Bid Managers can focus on assessing fit, building strategy, and coordinating resources.

What modern procurement could look like?

When procurement data becomes standardised, open, and integrated, both buyers and suppliers win.

• Buyers get broader competition and better value.
• Suppliers save time and bid on the right projects.
• Governments gain transparency and measurable impact.

This shift is already underway through initiatives like the EU Public Procurement Data Space (PPDS) and national digital strategies aimed at interoperability.

It’s not about replacing people; it’s about removing friction.

And for Bid Managers, that means a workday focused on winning, not just hunting.

Conclusion: It’s time to modernise the bid manager’s day

The Bid Manager’s role hasn’t changed because their tools haven’t.

Every login, spreadsheet, and manual shortlist is proof that the system hasn’t kept pace with the people who keep it running.

Modern procurement can’t just be digital; it must be usable.

Data should be connected, tasks automated, and opportunities delivered, not searched for.

When that happens, Bid Managers will finally spend their days doing what they do best: building relationships, crafting strong bids, and helping their companies grow.

Updating the Bid Manager’s day isn’t a small improvement. It’s the foundation for a more efficient, competitive, and transparent public procurement system.

Because when the process works for the people, it works for everyone.

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