PURSUIT ECONOMICS
The UK's 37 largest strategic suppliers spend an estimated £0.8bn to £1bn a year pursuing public-sector work, with around 70% sunk on unsuccessful bids. The opportunity is not to eliminate losing bids. It is to stop or reshape weak investment earlier, reduce repeatable effort on the pursuits that continue, and decide how the value will be used.
BidEquity strategic-supplier pursuit-spend methodology, 9 July 2026. Range based on three independent methods. Approximately 70% is a methodology estimate.
The UK's 37 largest strategic suppliers spend an estimated £0.8bn to £1bn a year pursuing public-sector work, including the bids they lose. Around 70% is associated with unsuccessful bids. That is the economic base BidEquity helps leaders interrogate and improve.
These are market estimates, not audited supplier P&L lines. The wins-led model has a wider sensitivity range of approximately £0.7bn-£1.6bn. A client business case must start from client actuals.
Market estimates establish scale. Your business case starts with your own data. A Pursuit Value Diagnostic reconciles spend, pipeline, effort, outcomes and commercial data to establish addressable value, cashability conditions and priority actions.
Pursuit capital has two controllable levers, and every figure in this business case comes from them.
LEVER 1 - QUALIFY HARDER
Challenge new and contestable opportunities before the full cost of capture, solution, pricing, governance and production is committed. Weak pursuits stop consuming senior time and cost before the heavy spend starts.
How it is calculated: contestable pursuit spend x stop / reshape rate.
LEVER 2 - REDUCE THE COST OF SALE
Use intelligence, evidence reuse, governed workflows and AI challenge to reduce research, assembly, review and coordination effort on the pursuits that continue - without cutting the thinking that wins them.
How it is calculated: remaining pursuit spend x non-writing share x efficiency rate.
This is capacity value first. It becomes cashable only through external-cost reduction, avoided hiring, attrition, redeployment or operating-model change.
Figure 01 — Illustrative cohort bridge
c.£380m-£510m annual hard-value opportunity before any win-rate or contribution-margin uplift.
The value splits into two kinds. Both are real; only one lands directly in the P&L.
Move senior people to priority pursuits, improve evidence and price decisions, absorb additional volume without proportional cost, and stop weak investment earlier.
Reduce external support, avoid incremental hires, absorb attrition, remove duplicate tools and redesign a smaller, more senior pursuit organisation.
Pass value into price to improve competitiveness.
Retain value as contribution margin and EBITDA.
Reinvest in priority pursuits, market entry, frameworks and stronger capture coverage.
These are alternative uses of the same value, not additive benefits.
COMPANY CALCULATOR
The calculator should provide an indicative range, not a promise. Its purpose is to show which variables create value and route the buyer into a Pursuit Value Diagnostic that validates the baseline, cashability conditions and priority interventions.
Calculated from the assumptions above.
Stop / reshape value = annual pursuit spend x contestable share x stop / reshape rate. Remaining spend = annual pursuit spend - stop / reshape value. Capacity value = remaining spend x non-bid-writing share x efficiency rate. Total addressable hard value = stop / reshape value + capacity value. Potential cashable P&L = addressable hard value x cashability rate.
A Pursuit Value Diagnostic establishes the baseline, agrees the value buckets and identifies which part of the opportunity is competitive capacity versus cashable P&L.