A high tender win rate needs a useful comparison group
The headline win rate looks suspiciously high
Imagine the team says it wins almost every quote. Some are competitive tenders, some are repeat orders from existing customers and others are small additions to jobs already under way. Combining them can make the result difficult to interpret.
Sort the work into useful groups before deciding that pricing must be wrong. A high win rate is a prompt to investigate, not proof that every accepted price is too low.
Define what counts as a tender and a win
Choose a period and identify submitted offers with known outcomes. Keep withdrawals, undecided bids and repeat order confirmations visible separately. Avoid including only the bids everyone remembers.
Use a consistent definition. If one estimator counts each revision as another quote while another counts only the final submission, the comparison will reflect reporting habits as much as customer decisions.
Group bids with similar commercial conditions
Separate genuinely competitive work from negotiated repeat work. Consider job size, scope familiarity, customer relationship and delivery constraints. Keep the groups practical rather than dividing the records until each contains only one convenient result.
business.gov.au recommends using market research and customer feedback when setting prices. A clearer comparison group makes that feedback more useful than treating every accepted quote as the same signal.
Add the outcome after the win
Compare the accepted work with actual costs, payment timing and scope changes where the job has progressed far enough. A low win rate can still produce poor jobs, and a high win rate can reflect a genuine capability the business delivers profitably.
Do not judge unfinished projects as final successes because the early cost report looks positive. Keep expected remaining costs and uncollected amounts clear in the review.
Ask focused questions about the result
Where appropriate, ask customers what mattered in the decision: availability, experience, scope clarity or price. Record their answer without turning one comment into a rule for all future tenders.
Use lawful market information and your own records. The aim is to understand the value customers saw, not to coordinate prices or obtain competitors' confidential bidding information.
Change the input the evidence identifies
If one group consistently wins but produces weak returns, review its assumptions and delivery process. If another performs well, identify what makes it different before applying a blanket price change.
When tender outcomes are contributing to wider business debt, bring the grouped results and job figures to your adviser or CRP. A useful diagnosis explains which work creates pressure, rather than relying on a single win-rate percentage.