Extractives: Before The Bid
❮ VSG News
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
In extractive industries, access isn’t granted at the proposal stage—it is earned long before.
Article by Arno Saffran, Wed 24 Sep, 2025Trust Before the Tender
In extractive industries, competitive advantage is not won during the tender process but established months or years earlier, through the systematic construction of relational capital and strategic positioning.
The Foundation
When a formal tender document appears, the critical decisions have already been made. The specifications, evaluation criteria, and often the preferred partners have been determined through earlier engagements. Companies that succeed are those whose representatives were present during technical dialogues, regulatory consultations, and feasibility studies—when project parameters remained fluid and influence could be meaningfully exerted.
The Components of Access
Effective access operates through several interconnected channels:
Early Presence: Participation in supplier workshops and market soundings, where agendas are still forming and relationships can be established without competitive pressure
Reputational Capital: A track record of integrity and technical competence that decision-makers can reference when evaluating potential partners
Local-Global Integration:Understanding of both the formal regulatory environment and the informal stakeholder landscape, combined with demonstrated execution capability
Strategic Discipline:** The willingness to walk away from opportunities that compromise long-term relationship capital for short-term gain
The Commercial Application
For business development leaders, this framework demands a fundamental reorientation of strategy and talent deployment. The most valuable commercial operators are those who can navigate the period before requirements are formalized, building the trust and alignment that ultimately shapes tender specifications. Their value lies not in responding to opportunities, but in helping to define them.
The distinction between transactional and strategic engagement lies in this temporal understanding. While competent teams excel at crafting compelling proposals, exceptional ones have already influenced the criteria against which all proposals will be judged. In extractive industries, the most valuable territory exists in the unmarked space before formal processes begin—where relationships and strategic alignment determine eventual outcomes.
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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.
