As of: October 2026. We first published this article in May 2024 and updated it in October 2026 to reflect the new thresholds and rules in procurement law.
The tender (Ausschreibung): for most architecture and engineering practices it is everyday business, for public contracting authorities it is mandatory, for the contracting trades it is a key to fair play and for brands… it regularly raises questions. As a building product manufacturer, how do I improve the chances that, ideally, my product is the one that ends up in the bill of quantities (Leistungsverzeichnis), the document in which products are specified? The crux is that, while planners may well have a clear idea of the right product, everyone involved has to stick to clear rules because the project is publicly funded. Money simply cannot be spent on a gut feeling or out of liking for a construction company or a brand. And so, for the sake of transparency, architects and civil engineers (and with them the public clients) are obliged to remain strictly neutral: the tender has to be product-neutral (produktneutral), describing what is required without naming a brand.
We wouldn’t be hej.build if we couldn’t still pass on some good advice. As part of our webinar format »Industry Update«, which we launched in May 2024, we asked Christine Klug, an architect with extensive tendering experience at assmann gruppe in Dortmund, to give our participants some valuable tips. Because marketing and sales teams can certainly give planners effective support.
Below, we sum up some basic facts about construction tenders along with the most important findings from our event.
What actually happens in a public tender? What is it for?
In a construction tender under the Vergabe- und Vertragsordnung für Bauleistungen (VOB, the German rules for awarding and contracting construction work), construction companies and tradespeople are publicly invited (that is, in daily newspapers, on online portals or in official gazettes, and in the Official Journal of the EU for EU-wide procedures) to submit bids for the construction work (supplies) required for a building project. Public contracting authorities such as the federal government, the federal states and local authorities award construction work through competition. Other public contracting authorities, such as foundations under public law, also count, and in some cases private clients whose project is predominantly publicly funded. How a contract is awarded depends on its value. Since 1 January 2026, new thresholds in the VOB/A (Part A of the VOB, which sets out the award procedures) apply to federal construction contracts: direct award (Direktauftrag) up to €50,000, negotiated award (freihändige Vergabe) up to €100,000 and restricted tender without a prior call for competition (beschränkte Ausschreibung ohne Teilnahmewettbewerb) up to €150,000, in each case excluding VAT. Whether the federal states adopt these thresholds is governed by the law of each state. From a contract value of around €5.4 million, the tender is EU-wide. Since July 2026, the Vergabebeschleunigungsgesetz (the German act to speed up public procurement) has also applied. Tenders ensure that construction contracts are awarded according to project-specific requirements. Tenders are drawn up on the basis of the technical design, usually by architects and also by civil engineers. Because they tender on behalf of public clients, they have to comply with the VOB/A.
From the pool of bids submitted…
- the public awarding body checks the documents of the participating companies,
- assesses the services offered,
- and ultimately decides on economic grounds.
And what about private clients?
Private or commercial clients can also put work out to tender. In that case, the VOB serves as the binding contractual basis if this is expressly agreed. Otherwise, the provisions of the German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, BGB) apply.
Which tools do planners use to draw up tenders?
As a rule, tenders in construction are prepared with the help of software. So-called AVA programs (Ausschreibung, Vergabe, Abrechnung: software for tendering, contract award and billing) have the practical advantage that the bills of quantities drawn up with them can also be used to check later invoices against the bids.
For building product manufacturers, it is therefore advisable…
- to provide product data in GAEB format (the German standard for exchanging tender data in construction), today usually GAEB DA XML (.x81), and additionally GAEB 90 (.d81) for older AVA programs,
- not to hide this data behind a login, given the large number of items needed,
- to be represented with their product data in databases such as ausschreiben.de, heinze-ausschreibungstexte.de and sirados.de.
Beyond that, planners of course also draw on their own databases, which takes a lot of regular maintenance and updating on top. Because architects keep looking at manufacturers’ texts for this, it makes sense not to put only marketing-led product texts on websites and in brochures, but also to provide texts that are already neutralised. This greatly reduces the workload on the planners’ side. And you, as the product supplier, still get a chance to place your own wording in the specification text.
It is also advisable to know exactly what people search for on your website and, if necessary, to review how many clicks it takes to reach the information they need. Two or three clicks more or fewer to the goal can sometimes decide whether planners look on you favourably or not.
By the way: even in public projects, architects and clients can still plan with specific preferred products during the design period. However, by the time of the tender at the latest, all details must be neutralised.
What does »neutral« actually mean in this context?
The easiest way to tell the difference is to compare typical examples side by side, as provided to us by Christine Klug, the speaker at the first »Industry Update«:
| product-specific | product-neutral |
|---|---|
| Rigips board | Drywall board |
| Isokorb | Load-bearing thermal insulation elements to minimise thermal bridges |
| ACO Drain (channel) | Drainage channel |
| Styropor | Expanded polystyrene |
| OWA ceiling | Suspended grid ceiling |
| Halfen channel | Channel for the adjustable fixing of connecting structures |
What else can you do to give your portfolio a reasonably reliable place in tenders?
Personal contact with the design practices is essential. The art, however, lies in being available as a sales person or consultant at the right moment, in person or virtually, and in being able to offer planners project-specific support where needed. And: if you have a good personal relationship with the people drawing up the tender, they can also advise their clients more precisely and may name one or two specific products from your range.
In your sales work, think of contractors too. If you keep track of as many of the currently published tenders as possible, you can advise local firms on specific projects and recommend yourselves and your products through active selling. Here it obviously helps to know the language of neutralised specification texts and to understand when your own products are meant and best suited to the building task.
To finish, three quick questions and answers:
Some manufacturers offer tender services that sometimes help prepare parts of the bill of quantities. When are these services relevant and how much are they used?
For more complex building components, such as a facade construction, facing bricks, doors or locking systems with very specific requirements, support is definitely in demand.
What decides whether a tender mentions a »Planungsfabrikat oder gleichwertig« (reference product or equivalent) or not?
Occasionally, the reference product the design team has in mind may be named in addition to the neutral specification text. This is only permitted as an exception, when the subject of the contract cannot otherwise be described with sufficient precision, and always with the addition »oder gleichwertig« (»or equivalent«). Whether this happens is decided case by case by the awarding bodies, not by the people preparing the tender in the design practice.
When may public projects be tendered »product-specific«?
A particular make may only be stipulated if the subject of the contract justifies it, for example when a building extension or work on an existing building has to connect technically to what is already there. The wish of the client or local authority alone is not enough.
As attractive as being part of public building projects is, it remains a challenge (we know that) to serve the interfaces between architecture practices, clients and contractors precisely in the context of tenders.
Can we help you with this? Then feel free to contact us at any time.
