How Compass Group maintains full control over 300 tenders per year

Every year, Compass Group and cleaning division Eir Renhold respond to over 300 tenders. From canteens on military bases to cleaning services in some of the country's largest commercial buildings, and from offshore catering to full facility management. With around 10,000 employees across more than 630 locations and combined revenues of nearly 10 billion NOK, this is one of Norway's most comprehensive FM groups.

Behind the impressive tender portfolio are, among others, Henriette Haugsnes, Head of Planning and Tendering at Eir Renhold, and Marcelle Mauritzson, Bid Manager for the food division at Compass Group. Eir Renhold alone responds to over 120 cleaning tenders per year, and at group level the total reaches between 300 and 350 responses.

That means the teams submit tenders almost every single day.

A higher risk of missing something in a manual process

The teams had a well-functioning system: every tender under consideration was logged in an Excel spreadsheet that tracked status, ownership and deadlines. Notifications came in by email from various portals and had to be manually transferred to the list. The problem lay one step earlier, in the notification layer itself.

– The alert system we used sometimes sent the same message several times over a few days, says Haugsnes. – You would become uncertain whether someone had already picked it up, or whether you were about to start a parallel process alongside a colleague. If we forgot to log the tender in the list, it was essentially gone. To make sure we did not miss anything, we built up a lot of extra routines that really should not have been necessary.

As a listed company closely linked to a global group in the United Kingdom, Compass Group operates within strict parameters for which contracts are profitable to bid on. Unlimited liability clauses, unfavourable termination terms and inadequate price adjustment mechanisms are all red flags that can make a tender unsuitable, regardless of the contract's size.

– These terms could be scattered across hundreds of pages, and surfacing them took time we would have been better spending on the proposal itself, says Haugsnes. – We have sat almost ready to submit, and then had to abandon the tender because the buyer had unreasonable contract terms. That is a vulnerable position to be in.

Full control and faster quality assessment

With Cobrief, the day-to-day has changed entirely. All tender notifications are now collected in a single platform, whether they come from public procurement portals or private clients with their own systems. Each notification appears once, with clear ownership and status.

One of Norway's most experienced tendering teams in facility management: Marcelle Mauritzson and Henriette Haugsnes at Compass Group.

– Now we quickly filter out what is not relevant, and what is relevant gets an owner straight away. We have full control over what is in the pipeline and who is responsible for what, says Haugsnes.

Cobrief's AI features automatically analyse the tender documentation and gather award criteria, contract terms, documentation requirements and potential red flags in one place. This gives the team a full overview early in the process, making it far easier to assess whether a tender is the right one to pursue, without spending hours digging through documents.

– We get a complete overview straight away. That means we can make informed decisions about whether to participate, and we avoid discovering critical blockers halfway through writing the response, says Haugsnes.

For Marcelle Mauritzson, who joined Compass Group with a background as a copywriter, the most valuable thing is the time freed up for writing.

– The most time-consuming part of tender work is the internal documentation: tax certificates, financial capacity, references. What I genuinely enjoy is writing the actual proposal. We are creating a narrative that lands with the client, and that is what wins the contract, says Mauritzson.

– Now Cobrief surfaces the information I need, so I can put my energy into writing a good, personal proposal. It makes a real difference day to day, she adds.

Winning more, losing fewer

The volume of tenders is roughly the same as before. But the quality is higher, and the risk of missing opportunities has been significantly reduced.

– It is harder to lose tenders now. We have full oversight in Cobrief, and nothing falls through the cracks the way it used to, says Haugsnes.

Time saved on manual work is reinvested in better proposals.

– The time you free up, you see again in the quality of what you deliver, says Mauritzson.

Henriette Haugsnes and Marcelle Mauritzson from Compass Group with Tellef Tveit, Commercial Director at Cobrief.

Compass Group also highlights their collaboration with Cobrief as a key factor in their success.

– You actually listen to our suggestions. There is a very short distance from feedback to real improvements in the product. And I appreciate how proactive you are, coming to us directly. That matters a great deal for the partnership, says Haugsnes.