The Pre-Tender Protocol
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BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
How the most effective leaders in oil, gas, and extractives learn to read the signals — subtle shifts in regulation, tone, and timing — that precede formal opportunity.
Article by Arno Saffran, Mon 20 Oct, 2025When the bid isn’t the beginning — it’s the end of the story
In extractive industries, the formal tender document does not begin a process—it concludes one. The most consequential commercial outcomes are determined not during the bid phase, but through the strategic positioning and stakeholder alignment that occurs 12 to 24 months prior.
During the pre-tender window, project specifications remain fluid. Technical requirements, local content thresholds, and partnership structures are still being defined. Engagement at this stage is not about responding to requirements, but about shaping them. This occurs through participation in feasibility studies, technical committees, and policy dialogues—forums where commercial narratives are established long before procurement formalizes them.
The Signals of Emerging Opportunity
Three categories of signal indicate this formative phase:
- Regulatory shifts in local content rules or environmental standards that presage new project parameters
- Stakeholder realignment within national oil companies or mining ministries during leadership transitions
- Supply chain consultations where operators sound out capacity for novel execution models
The Commercial Imperative
For business development leaders, this pre-tender period represents the highest leverage point for commercial engagement. The objective is not to win a specific bid, but to ensure one's solution becomes the reference case against which competitors are later measured. This requires cultivating relationships with technical authorities and policy influencers rather than focusing exclusively on procurement officials.
The distinction between reactive and proactive commercial leadership lies in this temporal understanding. While competent teams excel at crafting compelling proposals, exceptional ones have already shaped the evaluation criteria those proposals will be judged against. In extractives, the most valuable commercial territory exists in the unmarked space before the formal process begins—where relationships and strategic alignment determine eventual outcomes.
References
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
🆅🆂🅶 Arno Saffran
Arno developed his approach through roles in client development (KPMG) and strategic commercial engagement (affiliated with advisories including Hakluyt), focusing on complex industrial and energy sectors.
VSG works across the extractive value chain, positioning people who form the critical bridge to early-stage relationships and commercial access in complex markets.
