Every public procurement platform promises the same thing - advanced search.
Type in a few keywords, choose a category, set a region, and the right tenders should appear. In theory, it’s efficient. In practice, it’s exhausting.
Across Europe, Bid Managers and SMEs spend hours each week trying to make sense of inconsistent filters, vague keywords, and unreliable results. Each tender portal has its own logic, its own data structure, and sometimes, its own language. The result: too many irrelevant tenders, too few relevant ones, and endless time wasted trying to find the difference.
The European Commission estimates there are more than 2,000 procurement portals across Europe. Each system has its own definition of “advanced search.” None of them talk to each other.
This is the Tender Filter Fallacy, the belief that more filters equal better results. In reality, filtering has failed the people who need it most.
Here’s why and what needs to change.
The promise of “advanced search” in procurement portals
When public procurement first went digital, “advanced search” was its selling point. It was supposed to end the days of scrolling through endless lists of opportunities. For buyers, it offered better data visibility. For suppliers, it promised relevance and efficiency.
But for most users, the experience has barely improved.
The idea that sounded perfect
On paper, “advanced search” makes sense.
You choose a region, define your keywords, filter by CPV codes, and the system should instantly return the tenders that match your business.
The goal was to save time, to help SMEs and Bid Managers focus on the tenders worth reading, not every tender ever published.
And yet, despite sophisticated interfaces, most users still feel like they’re working against the system.
The reality for bid managers
In reality, each procurement portal interprets “advanced” differently.
One filter prioritises CPV codes, another sorts by deadline. Some can’t combine criteria at all.
A search that works on one platform fails on another.
The result? Bid Managers spend more time refining filters than reviewing results.
Even worse, the same tender might appear multiple times (or not at all), depending on how each portal tags it.
The European Court of Auditors notes that inconsistent publication standards make data comparison nearly impossible across EU portals.
The promise was simplicity. The outcome is confusion.
By midday, most Bid Managers aren’t filtering tenders, they’re fighting filters.
Next, we’ll unpack why these systems fail so often, and why “advanced” filtering is anything but.
Why tender filters fail in practice?
If tender portals were built to make opportunity discovery easier, filters should be their strongest feature. Instead, they’ve become one of the biggest sources of frustration for suppliers.
Every Bid Manager knows the feeling: you type in a keyword, apply a few filters, and get either thousands of irrelevant results, or none at all.
The problem isn’t the effort. It’s the architecture.
One system, many languages
Europe’s procurement data is multilingual and decentralised. Each portal classifies tenders differently, using translations or local terms that don’t always match.
A supplier searching for “software maintenance” in English might miss tenders published as “maintenance de logiciel” in French or “Software-Wartung” in German.
The European Commission acknowledges that inconsistent metadata and language barriers remain major obstacles to cross-border participation.
So, even the most “advanced” search struggles with something as basic as finding the same opportunity in multiple languages.
The keyword trap
Most search tools rely on keywords instead of meaning.
If your term doesn’t match exactly, or the buyer describes the service differently, the system won’t find it.
Some portals allow CPV (Common Procurement Vocabulary) codes, but even those are applied inconsistently. Many tenders are tagged incorrectly, or not at all, making searches unreliable.
The result: filters that look powerful but perform poorly.
Data in silos
Each procurement platform structures its data differently.
There’s no universal tagging system, no shared database, and often no API to connect one portal with another.
That means search results stop at the platform’s borders.
Even if your company could win a contract in another country, you might never see it, because the systems don’t talk to each other.
This isn’t user error. It’s design failure.
And that failure comes with a cost, one measured not in clicks, but in lost opportunities.
The cost of inefficient search
Every mislabelled tender or inconsistent search result has a cost. For SMEs, that cost is measured in time, missed opportunities, and ultimately, lost revenue.
What was meant to be a digital advantage has become a silent drain on productivity.
Time lost is opportunity lost
Bid Managers spend hours every week trying to find tenders that fit their company’s profile. With thousands of portals and inconsistent filters, much of that effort goes nowhere.
Studies by the OECD suggest that administrative inefficiency in procurement adds 20–30% in overhead costs to public spending.
If inefficiency costs governments money, it costs suppliers time, and time is what smaller companies can least afford.
Every hour spent filtering is an hour not spent writing proposals, building relationships, or improving bids.
Missed opportunities and duplicated effort
The same tender often appears in multiple portals, but not always in the same format. Some include buyer details, others don’t. Some update deadlines automatically; others require manual checking.
This duplication creates false confidence. A Bid Manager might think they’ve covered the market when, in reality, dozens of relevant tenders remain hidden behind search errors or untranslated titles.
As the European Court of Auditors has pointed out, fragmentation and data inconsistency reduce market participation and transparency.
SMEs don’t lack tenders to bid on. They lack the precision to find the right ones fast.
That’s why the next evolution in procurement search can’t be about more filters. It has to be about better discovery.
Beyond filters: What real discovery should look like
Procurement search doesn’t need more filters. It needs smarter context.
The goal isn’t to give users more ways to search; it’s to make sure they don’t have to.
True discovery should be about understanding what a supplier does and surfacing tenders that match, without endless manual input.
From keywords to context
The next generation of procurement tools must move from keyword-based to context-based search.
Instead of forcing Bid Managers to guess the right term, systems should learn from their activity, the tenders they open, the contracts they pursue, the regions they target.
Context means understanding intent: that “software support,” “maintenance,” and “IT service continuity” can describe the same need.
This isn’t futuristic, it’s how modern consumer platforms already work. Procurement just hasn’t caught up.
The rise of relevance scoring
Relevance scoring is replacing rigid filters.
It works by matching tenders to a supplier’s profile, not just their keywords. The system “learns” what fits based on previous bids and performance data.
For example, a supplier specialising in energy efficiency doesn’t need to search “LED retrofit.” A relevance-based system will automatically prioritise those opportunities because they align with past activity and strengths.
That’s a smarter version of advanced search, one that actually gets smarter with time.
Supplier-centric design
Better discovery starts with better design.
For Bid Managers, that means:
- One workspace, not ten portals
- Clear, consistent data - the same buyer, deadline, and value across all sources
- Search that understands what they want, not just what the buyer wrote
When procurement platforms become supplier-centric, filters won’t disappear, they’ll finally start to work as intended.
Because discovery isn’t about finding everything. It’s about finding what matters.
Smarter search, fairer access
Fixing tender discovery isn’t just a technical upgrade, it’s an equity issue.
When suppliers can’t find opportunities easily, participation drops, and public value suffers. Smarter search doesn’t just save time; it levels the playing field.
The future is recommendation, not filtering
Procurement platforms are slowly moving toward recommendation-based systems, similar to how streaming or job platforms work. Instead of endless searching, suppliers receive curated opportunities based on their profile, history, and capacity.
This shift changes everything:
- More SMEs discover opportunities they previously missed
- Buyers gain access to a wider, more diverse pool of suppliers
- Public contracts attract more bids and better proposals
Recommendation systems turn discovery into a two-way process, tenders find suppliers, not the other way around.
Why better search helps everyone?
Efficient discovery strengthens the entire ecosystem.
For suppliers, it means focus. For buyers, it means competition. For policymakers, it means tangible results: transparency that actually leads to participation.
The Open Contracting Partnership calls this “data with purpose”, information that fuels action, not administration.
When discovery becomes smarter, access becomes fairer, and public procurement finally delivers on its promise of open markets that work for everyone.
