What are the inputs?
Tenders in (from portals, aggregators, panels, and invitations) plus the firm’s own position: strategy, capacity, risk appetite, evidence library, and delivery reality. A layer without the firm’s side of the equation is a summariser with opinions. The three-axis test is the logic: strategy, capacity, risk.
What is the decision?
Bid, no-bid, or review, with the working shown: which clauses, which criteria, which capacity facts decided it. A score without named evidence is a mood with decimal places. The decision record that makes this stick is a later template; the scored version teams already use is the bid/no-bid scorecard.
Who owns it, and where does it hand off?
An accountable owner, never the bid writer alone, and a handoff contract to response: what was decided, what evidence exists, what remains unknown, who writes next. Where the record lives when a firm outgrows spreadsheets is a design question; see CRM and bid software. How it differs from response tooling is the category comparison on qualification layer vs response layer.
This page describes our positioning. Capability claims about our product belong to product pages and verified documentation, not to this definition. We sell the qualification layer; the alternatives are real products named honestly on the software list.
What does this mean for the bid/no-bid call?
It means the call has a home whether or not you buy anything: a register, a meeting, a record. Software makes the layer faster and more consistent; it does not make the decision for you. Start with the gate. Automate second.