FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION

Annual subscriptions tailored to each client.

Extrn offers a personalized service that differs significantly from tender search databases. An annual subscription model is not only more economical for our clients but also guarantees continuous service improvement and is essential for maintaining consistent quality.

To keep our search aligned with each client’s needs, in-person or online meetings are indispensable. These regular meetings allow us to discuss referred opportunities and to adjust the personalized search. Unlike impersonal email exchanges, these discussions strengthen our relationship with the client account manager, who acts as the spokesperson for your entire team.

Our subscription renewals are automatic, clients are required to notify us 60 days in advance if they do not wish to renew. We do not renegotiate terms each year, but in the case of any changes to conditions or prices, Extrn commits to timely communication with each company to explain the modifications and address any questions.

We ask our clients to strictly adhere to the 30-day payment term and the annual subscription, crucial for maintaining the service’s cost effectiveness. For new subscribers, it is possible to unsubscribe without penalties after six months of service in the first year. Thereafter, the subscription becomes annual.

If your business is expanding and your market extends across several provinces or even countries (Canada, USA, and Mexico), Extrn is for you.

The companies that benefit most from Extrn’s services are those whose markets span multiple provinces or territories in Canada and the United States. In such markets, there are many sources for tenders, making the search complex, and requiring Extrn’s specialized skills.

With its exclusive ability to tailor the service with respect to your work teams with specific needs in each region, Extrn offers a personalized solution. This means that teams receive only the opportunities that concern them, without being inundated by tenders from the other side of the country, avoiding inefficiency and the possibilty of users overlooking good opportunities among irrelevant offers.

The service is more costly, but this is justified by the complexity of multi-territorial markets and the high demands of the clients. Extrn specializes in these complex markets and offers customization at all levels. It is this specialization and ability to adapt to the unique needs of each region that make Extrn a preferred partner for ambitious and exacting companies.

• On the Extrn.ca homepage, click “Quick Demo“and fill out the contact form (your data remains confidential and is not shared with anyone).
• After watching the short 2 minute 30 second video, click at the bottom of the page to book a personalized demonstration.

The personalized demonstration is intended for company management. The person who will sign the agreement with Extrn should be present. Invite the personnel who conduct tender searches and those who will use Extrn so they can ask relevant questions and describe how they currently search for tenders and any difficulties they face.

This demonstration is conducted on Teams and is recorded to share the description of your needs with the team. Hearing you explain in your own words is much more beneficial than reading a list of keywords; this is how we customize our service.

We will then share our screen to show you how we will proceed, how we will overcome difficulties, and how we will facilitate your team’s work while collaborating closely. We will also encourage you to send feedback, to ensure everything is covered the way you want it to be.

During the demonstration, after considering your specific requests, we will provide you with a detailed offer including prices and terms. If accepted, we will send the offer for signing the same day, and the service can start the next day with a review of open opportunities and a daily search.

Richard Chenier, Owner: “We’ll find your tenders the same way you would if you had all the time in the world, by going through each source one by one”.

Extrn monitors and scans each site. In Canada, this includes 310 sites, and in the United States, 614. Our aim is to cover up to 2,000 sites daily. Some sites are manually scanned by researchers who perform simple searches for all new opportunities from the previous day, reviewing each opportunity individually. For others, an email aggregates ALL newly published opportunities. A specialized tool developed by Extrn scans a long list of smaller websites to detect daily changes. An agent then reviews these updates using an index to ensure every source is covered daily. In some cases, we perform in-depth analysis of tenders and use AI to summarize complex projects.

We also refer Upcoming Projects and clients are welcome to submit pages or sources they might find announcing upcoming projects.

Extrn collaborates with your sales team to create a precise search index—rather than just a list of keywords. Unlike tender websites, we work to understand the tenders to reliably match client needs. By reading each opportunity individually, we refer the ones that might otherwise be missed.

Every client provides feedback to refine searches continuously, achieving a precision level that IT tools and artificial intelligence cannot match. This approach allows us to uncover contracts that conventional keyword-based methods miss.

Extrn is a site of sites, continuously examining public tender websites in Canada and the Usa.

In Canada: see the list on our “monitored sites” page.   There are two main types of tendering websites: those managed by public entities and those run by private companies. Public entities ensure the proper functioning and distribution of the tenders themselves. On the other hand, private companies can function as aggregators, republishing tenders that have been published by others. Often, these aggregators do not name the original sources, their references are incorrect, details are missing, and links to the original pages are lacking.   Extrn excludes aggregators and only searches for original pages. Acting as a representative of your company, Extrn selects results just for you and can outperform any aggregator tender site.

In the United States: See our map, clicking on each state reveals the names of the monitored organizations.   What type of sites are monitored in the US? We started monitoring the US in 2023 with federal procurement sites and sites for each state, followed by the 50 cities with the biggest budgets, State D.O.T.s (Departments of Transportations) and other transportation agencies. Now we are focusing on Universities and the Health sector. In January 2025, we are at 633 sites and are aiming for 2000 public tender websites.   Users need to learn how to bid and win contracts, but we have studied each site, and we are able to help our customers navigate to the tender documents because we know the sites by heart.   Many US sites have tenders on one site, documents on a second a third site for uploading your bids. Some are free and others require a subscription, and you might have to upload tax documents and other formal documents proving your company’s identity. We have done the full process in each site and can tell you what to do when we find you a relevant opportunity. This is an excellent advantage in that you only invest this time once a tender is found.   Our Usa tender service is available as its own subscription or combined with a Canadian public tender referral service.

Why doesn’t Extrn have competitors?

Any potential competitors of Extrn’s are simply databases that copy tenders and offer keyword searches or email reports. No other service offers personalized research that is as comprehensive and complete.

Extrn is an invaluable tool for businesses looking to expand their opportunities and stands out for several compelling reasons; these features ensure that users have access to the most relevant, up-to-date, and actionable tender information available:

Comprehensive Coverage

Extrn monitors hundreds of tender sites across Canada and the United States, offering an unparalleled breadth of information.

In-depth Insights

Extrn’s platform offers rich descriptions with each tender, including the contracting organization’s name and a detailed explanation of the request. This level of detail helps users quickly grasp the essential elements of each tender, facilitating informed decision-making.

Enhanced Understanding

The carousel feature is particularly valuable, providing extracts from quotes, such as price schedules and budget timelines. This visual and detailed presentation aids users in understanding the context and requirements of each tender.

Direct Communication

One of the most beneficial features of Extrn is direct communication between researchers and businesses. Researchers can comment and engage in one-on-one relationships with businesses to clarify or ask questions about specific tenders and businesses can provide feedback. This personalized approach ensures that users have all the information they need to pursue relevant opportunities.

Unmatched Expertise

Extrn’s team of researchers brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the table, continuously monitoring and updating the platform to reflect the latest opportunities. This dedication to accuracy and relevance means that users can trust the information provided and focus on what matters most—winning tenders.

Without Extrn: You would need an account on every site to read notices and tender documents.

With Extrn: You get summarized notices and excerpts of tender documents (just enough information). If the opportunity interests you, you can purchase full access.

Limits of Keyword Alerts

• False positives: Keywords can appear in contexts unrelated to the company’s needs, forcing users to manually sort through numerous irrelevant results.
• Lack of precision: Tender notices are often written in a complex and varied manner. Keyword alert tools cannot always grasp the nuances and specifics of opportunities, leading to the potential loss of interesting contracts.
• Time and frustration: Managing keyword alerts can become a time-consuming and frustrating task. Users must sift through many results to find relevant opportunities, which can discourage them and lead them to abandon the search.

Limits of Aggregators:

• Overabundance of entries: Users are overwhelmed with offers not related to their business.
• Changes and Errors: Replicated tenders may have changed from the original, and errors might creep in.
• Delays: Delayed timeframe from original posting.
• Geographic segmentation is not possible.

Limits of official Tendering sites:

• Searches by keyword or by category (and tenders are often badly sorted)
• Numerous sites and entries to sift through

Advantages of Manual Search Done by Extrn for You Daily

• Increased relevance: By reading each opportunity, researchers can evaluate the relevance of each tender notice based on the specific needs, and geographic reach of the company. This ensures that only the most relevant opportunities are retained.
• Value-added content, as well as access to the source as if the user found it directly.
• In-depth analysis: Manual search allows a deeper understanding of tender notices. Researchers can identify hidden details and subtleties that automated tools might miss.
• Customization: By working with a researcher like Extrn inc., companies benefit from a personalized service. Extrn’s researchers work closely with clients to understand their business objectives and success criteria, ensuring intentional recommendations.
• One daily email with all relevant tenders from different sources in one place. Each user in your company receives a personalized email for their division with search results tailored to the specific index that your company and Extrn have established.
• Tips on navigating websites: we have spent time getting to know our monitored sites and can guide you.

To find public tenders, it is necessary to monitor and scour the internet for published opportunities. You need to open accounts on tendering web sites and often incur fees for acquiring the specifications and addenda.

Tender notices are easy to find, they are available on many websites and are easily accessible. Opportunities are classified by categories (there are several ways to categorize goods and services, the Internal Trade Agreement managing the electronic display of tenders in Canada allows each government level to establish which system they will use); using the right keywords, one can certainly find suitable opportunities. However, the difficulty lies in the fact that tender notices are often grouped by issuing authorities, such as provinces, states, or by aggregators that partially or fully replicate opportunities from other websites. The original documents and addenda are not copied, and you will need to return to the site where the tender originated; further, this link to the opportunity is often not provided. Tender listing sites engage in a real technological war to prevent copying of information on tenders from one site to another, and the bots are becoming increasingly efficient.

You will notice that many sites warn suppliers that to submit a bid, you must have obtained the documents in your name, from your account, on the site where the tender is published. This is essential, for your submission to be valid, you must have received all the addenda; otherwise, you may have missed important changes resulting in an incomplete submission. For legal reasons, you must have received and considered all addenda attached to the opportunity you wish to bid on.

To search for tenders effectively, you must understand that legitimate opportunities are those that include official documents. You need to geographically target the sites of final buyers, where original documents and addenda are published. You must read all new opportunities published daily so as not to miss anything (regardless of the categories, which are often incorrect) and you need to test each site’s alert tools offered to see if they would suit you. Additionally, you need to check the frequency of publications and above all, carefully monitor the words used to create effective alerts. You guessed it, you will end up with a list of sites to search manually and several alert emails to read, not to mention the more in-depth reading of the most interesting opportunities. Finally, review and identify the gaps observed in the process and find the means to achieve suitable monitoring anyway. You can reread all the new opportunities published, note those that were not captured by your email alerts, and adjust your filter until you are confident in capturing the right opportunities without too many false positives. A company should always keep precise records of the information on the websites monitored and the method used to find opportunities. This allows a replacement to take over the work at any time, particularly in the case of staff turnover, to ensure that no opportunities are missed during an absence.

It is crucial to understand that this process requires considerable time and effort. To be effective, this monitoring must be actively maintained according to a rigorously respected schedule. Without continuous and disciplined updating, monitoring efforts quickly become futile.

Bidding on public contracts offers a multitude of strategic and operational benefits, making this market an essential pillar for any company looking to ensure its stability, growth, and long-term competitiveness.

Public contracting represents a stable and continuous market, unaffected by economic fluctuations. Public needs are ubiquitous and must be met, even during economic crises. Unlike the private sector, which may reduce spending during a recession, public institutions must continue to provide essential services, ensuring consistent and predictable demand.

Bidding on public tenders is a guarantee of profitability. Operating in a competitive environment keeps companies robust, sharpens their skills, and constantly confronts them with their competition. This not only strengthens their financial resilience but also gives them excellent knowledge of the market and the practices of their competitors. This dynamic is beneficial for the financial health of the company, stimulating it to innovate and adapt quickly.

Profitable companies maintain an average of 20% to 40% of their turnover through public contracts. Industries such as clothing, furniture, construction, and professional services sustain their business thanks to this market. It may not be the most lucrative, but it is what keeps them afloat when making significant investments, facing an economic crisis, or simply dealing with an increase in interest rates.

Meeting the rigorous requirements of public contracts allows companies to gain valuable experience. Companies learn to satisfy demanding clients, helping them to maintain strict discipline and high-quality standards. This rigor and constant adaptation to high expectations are major assets for conquering new markets, even in the face of new competition.

What makes Extrn unique is the integration of human expertise into the research process. Unlike artificial intelligence and other automated tools, Extrn specialists understand the nuances and specifics of each company’s needs. We do not just search for keywords but analyze each opportunity in depth to ensure it perfectly, or sometimes not quite perfectly, meets our clients’ requirements. Extrn experts use our know-how and experience to uncover hidden details and subtleties that AI algorithms might miss. For example, we can identify potential opportunities by reading between the lines of project descriptions, interpreting the intentions behind the words, and assessing the viability of proposals considering the current business context.

But, just like IT tools can have technical issues, we can also make mistakes; it would be unreasonable to claim otherwise. When reviewing tenders daily, human errors are possible. However, with years of experience, we have implemented measures to minimize such errors as much as possible.

Sometimes our clients inform us about contracts they have heard of or found themselves that we did not consider. Reminders about missed tenders highlight the value clients place on our service, thus motivating us to seek improvement. Our mistakes allow us to strengthen our collaboration with our clients, ensuring a better understanding of their needs and continuous optimization of our opportunity selection process.

Occasional errors are part of our learning and improvement process, and they are mitigated by the significant number of opportunities we successfully identify for our clients. We greatly appreciate feedback from our clients, whether positive or constructive, as it helps us to refine our approach and to offer an increasingly precise and effective service. Customer satisfaction relies on trust and collaboration. Extrn, although fallible, makes the best use of human intelligence. Admitting mistakes is essential to remain honest.

We search for all tenders published the previous day because many sites publish new offers at any time. Extrn summarizes and presents each opportunity well. The researcher adds a touch of personalization to clearly convey to the reader the essential elements they need to know about a tender. Unlike keyword filters that capture these new offers live, Extrn sends one email with the results of its searches from the previous day each day, which is more efficient and less disruptive. If no opportunities are found, there is no email, but the online platform remains an effective means of direct communication for our clients.

Hidden Benefits of the Extrn Platform

Extrn does not assist with bid writing for two main reasons. First, as our service is offered to all, including competing companies, we want to avoid any conflict of interest. Extrn maintains distance from its clients’ tenders to uphold impartiality. Secondly, Extrn has decided to focus our resources on contract search for our clients rather than direct response to tenders. We do, however, provide free general coaching on writing a submission. Additionally, we often collaborate with our clients to identify relevant points in notices that may escape the proposal writer. Our collaboration centers primarily on identifying and understanding opportunities, leaving the preparation of submissions to our clients.

Bringing trade barriers between provinces to an end in Canada will significantly facilitate internal trade and public tendering (Municipal, Health, Education, Provincial and Federal).

– Reduced Costs and Delays: Removing trade barriers would make it easier for companies to bid on tenders in other provinces. Not having to comply with different standards and regulations would reduce administrative costs and delays associated with bid preparation [1].

– Increased Competition: With fewer restrictions, more companies could participate in public tenders, thereby increasing competition. More competition could lead to more competitive bids and better-quality services and products [1].

– Standard Harmonization: The abolition of trade barriers could encourage the harmonization of standards and regulations between provinces, making it easier for companies to participate in public tenders. For example, mutual recognition of professional licenses and certifications could make it easier for companies to work in several provinces [1].

–Access to a Larger Market: Companies would have access to a larger market, which could enable them to grow and develop more rapidly. This could also encourage innovation and improvements in the products and services offered [1].

–Streamlining of Processes: simplifying bidding processes and reducing bureaucratic requirements could make public tenders more accessible to small and medium-sized businesses, thus encouraging a greater diversity of suppliers [1].

In summary, the elimination of trade barriers between Canadian provinces could make domestic trade and public tendering more efficient, competitive and accessible, while reducing costs and delays for businesses [1].

Extrn monitors the tenders of all Canadian sites (310) every day and manually refers the results of its customized search to each client. In-depth knowledge of each site, where to find documents and cost, and general support and coaching means companies know everything in good time to bid effectively. www.extrn.ca

References

[1] Libre-échange: vers la fin des barrières commerciales entre les provinces?