2026 could be the year where it finally dawns on us all that things have changed – and have changed permanently. We’re not talking about a change into a more steady state. We’re talking about a change into a state of continual churn and flux.

What I would have once described as a VUCA system (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous), has now become the new normal. And it’s this recognition that marks 2026 as a turning point.

Why 2026 is a Turning Point

We used to have periods like COVID-19 or the beginning of the war in Ukraine that would put the whole world into flux, but it was still our expectation that things would eventually settle down after a while. But it seems that now everything everywhere is in a state of permanent flux. Things had been situational before; so many different situations happening all over the world, all the time. But these uncertain conditions are now to be expected, as opposed to being an exception. We don’t just mean in geopolitical and geoeconomic terms either, but in AI usage and data handling too. These innovations that were once new, just being tried out, are now firmly a part of our day-to-day environment and further influencing our jobs. Disruption is no longer working cyclically but instead it can be positioned as a structural feature of the global business environment.

This means there is a new success criteria. Strategic judgement and insight increasingly outweigh response and quality tone. The level of scrutiny has also increased. Procurement decisions are now examined by finance, risk, audit and regulators together. Just relying on what we did before and what worked successfully – trying to write compelling, compliant proposals – is no longer enough. Yes, these are still two key aspects, but we have to do so much more.

There are four key forces shaping bidding in 2026:

1. Geopolitical instability: fragmenting markets and increasing delivery, data and supply chain risk.
2. Economic pressure: driving intense value-for-money and affordability scrutiny.
3. AI-enabled procurement: changing how bids are filtered, compared and evaluated. AI is not only being used on the bidders’ side, but in procurement too. Buyers are beginning to use AI in the creation of documents, in the evaluation of responses and in the stress testing of commercial propositions.
4. ESG and regulation: expanding evaluation criteria and post-award accountability. ESG is no longer aspirational – it is coming to the fore. It is taking a more prominent position in the evaluation criteria and is often, if not always, scored. This means it needs to be hard wired into an organisation’s psyche, and they have to be able to evidence it. Where bidders are all scoring highly on their technical and service delivery scores, clearly evidencing strong ESG practise can tip the balance in their favour.

ESG: From Commitment to Credibility

The change in buyers’ expectations regarding ESG is structural, not just narrative. This means it’s no longer enough to talk about having a policy, a few success factors, or a budget to deliver ESG.

ESG commitments can, in effect, create long-term exposure for the buyer. They will have to consider what risks the supplier’s commitments could have long term. Big promises only serve to amplify the downstream risk. The buyer wants to know what they are going to get, they want something tangible that they can grasp a hold of. They do not want promises where there is nothing specific and nothing guaranteed. As a result, phrases like ‘aiming’, ‘aspiring’, ‘hoping’ to do something, need to be removed. Evaluators are looking for specific guarantees.

Risk and Resilience as Differentiators

Risk has moved to the centre of decision making. Buyers are aware of the downstream risks more than ever before. So, bidders need to know them too. Buyers are looking for resiliency from bidders – in an uncertain world, this is very important. Any silence surrounding risk from the supplier will ultimately feel riskier than transparency. Rather, transparency promotes trust. A mature bidder will position themselves as open and transparent – confident in their ability to manage risk.

Brilliant bids will let the buyer know about a potential problem that the buyer may not have even thought of, and then on top of that, will evidence how their solution will mitigate this risk. The buyer feels safe in this scenario because the bidder has a comprehensive understanding of the risks involved in the contract, and therefore, confidence in service delivery increases.

Changing Role of the Bid Function

1. Cross-functional integration: bid teams now operate between strategy, sales, finance, delivery, ESG and risk
2. Early influence: decisions made during bidding increasingly lock in commercial and operational outcomes
3. Strategic evolution: bidding is shifting from production activity to strategic business capability

Bid professionals are going to become integrators in a more complex environment. They are becoming more involved in the selection of bids, helping businesses to decide what opportunities they should be a part of. The bid professional’s voice is being heard increasingly loudly at the decision-making tables. The use of a bid/no-bid matrix has proven to be useful for bid professionals in this area.

Clients favour realistic pricing over aggressive assumptions. Buyers will be expecting pricing logic they can defend internally. They are becoming more sophisticated and experienced – and will often stress test a bidder’s cost assumptions. There is an increasing focus on what will be achieved over the whole-life of the contract. As a result, operational, risk, and lifecycle costs matter more than the headline price. No decision maker on the buyer’s side will want, a few years down the line, the claim levelled against them, “which clown hired these clowns?”.

Bidders should not be afraid to talk about risk – at one point, a bidder may have downplayed risk, but this will be a sign of weakness to the buyer, not strength. Bidders should be up-front about the risks involved and then demonstrate how these risks will be mitigated. Winning bids actively reduce the buyer’s anxiety.

Localisation: proposals need to be created as close to where they are going to be delivered. Those crafting proposals must get close to the people in the organisation who are on the ground with the clients or potential customers, so they get to understand the particulars of specific geographies, discrete sectoral differences, unique cultural differences, and so on.

A bid written from a head office perspective is not going to be as successful as one written with a local narrative. The more nuanced bid has a much better prospect of winning. Global boilerplate was designed for a different world.

Global boilerplate will often fail in today’s market because of divergent expectations and context blindness. For one, risk appetite, value and ESG are interpreted differently by region. And further, generic narratives fail to address local priorities and pressures. On the other hand, local relevance signals seriousness and respect. Buyers increasingly penalise bids that feel imported or templated.