Joint tender for freight forwarding services: promises and pitfalls

Book chapter, 2016

In 2010, a group of humanitarian agencies decided to aggregate their freight forwarding demands and jointly tender for possible providers. The hope was to gain better negotiation leverage in front of the forwarders, be more competitive, and to reduce the intensity of individual tendering processes. The process did not go as expected, it took much longer than originally anticipated, some agencies dropped out mid-way, and the remaining group did not gain the negotiation leverage it was hoping for. This case is the representation of the events from 2010 to 2011 in this joint tender, that eventually lead to the unexpected outcomes. It is based on the observations of individuals at the humanitarian agencies and at the forwarders and it aims to further elaborate on the 1) complexities of joint tenders (i.e. cooperative procurement), and 2) how it can impact buyer’s procurement power.