[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":105},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-en-lost-public-tender-certification-lessons-learned":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"body":6,"categories":85,"date":87,"description":12,"draft":88,"excerpt":89,"extension":90,"image":91,"lang":92,"meta":93,"modified":94,"navigation":95,"noindex":88,"path":96,"related":89,"seo":97,"seoDescription":98,"seoTitle":99,"slug":100,"sourcePath":101,"sourceRoute":89,"stem":102,"tags":89,"translated":88,"type":103,"wpId":89,"__hash__":104},"blog\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Flost-public-tender-certification-lessons-learned.md","An honest failure: why we lost a public tender over a missing certification",{"type":7,"value":8,"toc":76},"minimark",[9,13,18,21,25,28,32,35,39,42,46],[10,11,12],"p",{},"Most vendors only write about the projects they win. We believe a lost tender often teaches you more — and that is exactly what we are sharing openly here.",[14,15,17],"h2",{"id":16},"the-starting-point","The starting point",[10,19,20],{},"Through a public procurement portal, we were made aware of a tender from a federal authority in the environmental sector. Professionally, the requirements fitted our portfolio well — until we read the mandatory criteria in detail.",[14,22,24],{"id":23},"the-mandatory-criterion-that-took-us-out-of-the-race","The mandatory criterion that took us out of the race",[10,26,27],{},"The tender required specific personal certifications in Kubernetes and VMware — not as “desirable”, but as a hard exclusion criterion. We run our infrastructure reliably and securely, but without these specific individual certificates, which tend to be more relevant to classic on-premise infrastructure projects. The result: a solution that was a good professional fit could not even be offered because of a purely formal criterion.",[14,29,31],{"id":30},"what-this-means-for-public-sector-procurement-practice","What this means for public-sector procurement practice",[10,33,34],{},"Mandatory criteria in tenders are often modelled on classic infrastructure projects rather than modern SaaS operating models. For cloud-native vendors, this can be a structural disadvantage — regardless of the actual security or quality of the solution. Contracting authorities that want to procure modern software should regularly check their mandatory criteria for exactly this blind spot.",[14,36,38],{"id":37},"what-we-have-done-differently-since","What we have done differently since",[10,40,41],{},"We now check mandatory criteria as the very first step before every bid decision, not only after the professional assessment — this saves everyone unnecessary effort when a criterion simply cannot be met for structural reasons.",[14,43,45],{"id":44},"frequently-asked-questions","Frequently asked questions",[10,47,48,52,55,56,59,61,62,65,67,68,71,72,75],{},[49,50,51],"strong",{},"Are certification requirements common in tenders?",[53,54],"br",{},"\nYes, especially with public authorities and larger organisations that have their own IT governance — although whether they are phrased as mandatory or merely optional criteria varies widely.\n",[49,57,58],{},"Can you object to such a criterion?",[53,60],{},"\nFormally, this is possible in certain procurement procedures, but in practice it is laborious and rarely successful if the criterion was correctly published in advance.\n",[49,63,64],{},"How can you spot such criteria early on?",[53,66],{},"\nIdeally through a structured initial check of the mandatory criteria before preparing the content of the bid — exactly what we have built into our process since.\n",[49,69,70],{},"Are you putting together tender documents and want to know how SaaS vendors respond to classic infrastructure criteria?"," We are happy to share our experience — even outside of a specific procedure.\n",[49,73,74],{},"Are you drawing up a requirements specification yourself?"," Ask us for our free requirements specification checklist (PDF) — 7 topic blocks that no tender should be without.\nGet in touch",{"title":77,"searchDepth":78,"depth":78,"links":79},"",2,[80,81,82,83,84],{"id":16,"depth":78,"text":17},{"id":23,"depth":78,"text":24},{"id":30,"depth":78,"text":31},{"id":37,"depth":78,"text":38},{"id":44,"depth":78,"text":45},[86],3329,"2026-05-08T09:00:00",false,null,"md","\u002Fmedia\u002F2026\u002F07\u002Fimg-post3-zertifizierung-lessons-learned.jpg","en",{},"2026-07-25T08:10:59",true,"\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Flost-public-tender-certification-lessons-learned",{"title":5,"description":12},"You do not win every tender. Honest lessons learned: why a missing Kubernetes\u002FVMware certification led to our exclusion.","Lost public tender: no certification, lessons learned","lost-public-tender-certification-lessons-learned","\u002Fen\u002Fblog\u002Flost-public-tender-certification-lessons-learned\u002F","en\u002Fblog\u002Flost-public-tender-certification-lessons-learned","posts","74FB8Ida-L0ct1QteHjaPSrNfRba3tEjbPxBA2SlJiA",1791582060910]