A consulting company spends weeks on a framework tender: the technical annex, the consultant CVs, the questionnaires, the price. The award arrives, the team celebrates, and then the first service requests appear with deadlines counted in days. That is usually the moment a company discovers that nobody planned who would answer them.
Framework contract delivery, the ability to turn a won seat into consultants actually placed, is a separate discipline from bidding. It needs its own people, its own data and its own decision about how much to do in-house. This article draws on advice Marco Pincho gives to bid and delivery leaders: prepare the machine before requests arrive, choose a delivery model that fits your team, and monetise the seat you already paid for.
- Winning a framework contract gives you a seat. Revenue comes from the service requests you answer with the right consultants.
- Requests tend to arrive in waves around the turn of a contract cycle, so preparation belongs in the quarter before.
- A delivery machine needs people who know the CV templates and technical questionnaires, plus a consultant network already mapped.
- A searchable consultant database lets you load a job description and see best matches, matched skills and gaps in one export.
- Companies with a small recruitment team can broker: push partners’ CVs under your contract and keep a fee, 15 percent in the example discussed.
- Placing consultants inside a client organisation gives you access to the managers who commission future work.
- Ask management to fund delivery the way it funded bidding.
Why Winning a Framework Contract Does Not Guarantee Revenue
A framework contract is a licence to compete. The award places your company on the list of suppliers a buyer can call on, and from then on every service request is its own contest, with a specific job description, a short deadline and other suppliers holding the same seat.
The tender cost is already spent by that point: bid team hours, consultant CVs prepared, management attention. Revenue only starts when a consultant is placed against a request, so the real return on the bid depends on what happens after the award.
“Bidding without delivery means nothing. It’s delivery that brings the money.”Marco Pincho
Marco describes the opposite failure bluntly. A company that does the hard work of winning tenders and then does not exploit them is acting against its own interest, in his word suicidal. Everybody wants the seat at the table, and declining to eat once seated throws away the part that was hardest to get.
Some companies hold a seat without being primarily interested in time and means work. Their interest is selective: requests that fit a core specialism, or an institution they want a long-term relationship with. Marco accepts that. His addition is that a selective approach still needs a mechanism, because requests arrive on the buyer’s schedule and a company without a process ends up ignoring them by default.
Is winning a framework contract enough to generate revenue?
No. A framework contract only gives your company the right to answer a buyer’s service requests. Revenue begins when you submit consultants who match a specific request and one of them is selected.
That makes the award a starting position. Between the award and the first invoice sit several steps: receiving the request, finding suitable consultants, getting their CVs into the buyer’s template and submitting before the deadline. A company that has only invested in the bid has covered the first of several stages. The CV management for consulting page describes how companies handle the CV side of that operation.
When Service Requests Start and How Early to Prepare
Timing in a framework is set by the buyer’s cycle, not by your preparation. In Marco’s expectation, a buyer closes out outstanding requests under the previous contract before the end of the year, because buyers like to finish the year clean. The new framework then starts operating in the first weeks of January.
Under the previous contract, the extensions were due to end by the close of February, as the contract term required. That leaves about two working months in which the buyer has to move its activity onto the new framework. His expectation is a large number of new requests in January, specifically requests that are not earmarked for one known supplier contact.
His advice on timing is direct: be ready in December, January at the latest. The reason is practical. Recruiting takes time, training a team on templates and questionnaires takes time, and building a consultant network takes time. None of that can start on the day the first request lands.
A useful way to plan is backwards from the date requests begin. Count the weeks you need to hire or reassign people, to teach them the buyer’s formats and to contact the consultants you expect to put forward. Whatever does not fit before that date becomes the first thing to go wrong in the opening weeks, when every other supplier is also deciding where to focus.
What a Delivery Machine Needs Before the First Request
Marco’s image for the target state is a drill: a machine already oiled, so that work gets done fast. The alternative he describes is a team overloaded by the requests that arrive.
“You need some kind of a machine already oiled, like a drill, in order to deliver fast. If not, you’ll be overloaded with the requests that you’ll get.”Marco Pincho
In practice that means having five things in place before the first deadline.
- ✓People who understand the buyer’s CV template, forms and technical questionnaires well enough to advise consultants, not just forward documents
- ✓Recruitment channels in the countries where you expect to source consultants
- ✓A consultant network already built, with a clear view of who should apply to which kinds of request and who should not
- ✓A way to turn a job description into a ranked shortlist without reading every profile by hand
- ✓A repeatable route from a consultant’s existing profile to the buyer’s CV format
The first item matters more than it looks. A recruiter who knows the template and the questionnaires can tell a consultant on the first call whether a request is worth pursuing. Marco’s phrasing is that the team should be able to advise on who should apply and who should not, which spares everyone submissions that were never going to score.
The fourth and fifth items are data problems. If consultant profiles sit in individual files in different formats, every request starts with a manual search. Companies that keep profiles in a structured database can query them the moment a request arrives. The AI CV Parser page explains how existing CVs become structured profiles in the first place.
How to Shortlist Consultants Quickly When a Request Arrives
The approach starts with a searchable database of candidates, 129 in the example Marco uses. A job request arrives from the buyer, in this case for a Java developer, and the question put to the database is simple: who would be the best ones to contact? The same query serves recruitment and bidding.
The system returns a list that can be exported to Excel, showing the best-matching candidates, why they match, which skills they hold and which are missing. In the example the skills were Java, microservices and Angular, and the gap analysis ran profile by profile.
The contact step that follows is plain. A simple message to people the company already knows says that a request has come in, that the person looks like a good match, that the job description is attached, and that they should reply by email or message if interested. Candidates are then sorted into those worth pursuing, those filtered out and those not selected, and a courteous note can go to the last group so the relationship continues. That messaging can be automated.
How can a consulting company shortlist consultants for a new service request quickly?
Keep consultant profiles in one searchable database, load the job description, and rank profiles against it with matched and missing skills shown for each. Contact the best matches first, with the job description attached.
The speed comes from not reading profiles one by one. Sprint CV, the Enterprise CV Manager Marco founded in 2018, runs this query against the company’s database and exports an Excel file that explains each match. The team spends its time on the conversation with the consultant instead of on the search.
Gaps are the next problem. A profile that fits most of a request will usually lack a few years in one technology or a responsibility the job description names. Sprint CV has a candidate questionnaire feature built for exactly this. The recruiter sends the consultant a link, by email or a messaging app, and the questionnaire lists the requirements the profile does not yet cover. The system already knows what the profile contains, so it only asks about what is missing, for example the number of years in a specific technology. As the consultant answers, the profile updates automatically, and the consultant can also say under which job title the experience belongs, so the title mirrors what the request asks for.
Bid teams know why this matters. Evaluators often look for a requirement in the description of the specific assignment, not only in the skills list, so a line under skills saying five years of a technology may not be enough. The same workflow can rework the summary and task descriptions to mirror the request, subject to the rules of the framework.
One caution applies before any automated rewriting. Some framework contracts restrict the use of AI in writing CV text, and in that case the consultant must write their own summary. Marco’s suggestion for those frameworks is to leave the CV content untouched and to coach consultants to write it well themselves, for example with a welcome message and a short video of best practices sent along with the questionnaire.
How a Small Recruitment Team Can Still Earn From a Framework
Marco says plenty of companies do. His observation is that most companies in this position have a very small recruitment team and broker the positions. They broadcast the request to sub-providers, review the CVs that come back and select the ones that look good. In his phrase, they act like a commission.
The economics he describes are straightforward. The company that holds the contract pushes its partners’ CVs under that contract. If the submission wins, the company takes a fee, 15 percent in the example he gives, and the partner keeps the rest. If it does not win, that is the end of it, and the company has spent little energy.
“You already won the position, so why not monetize it the way you should?”Marco Pincho
He is frank that this may not be the company’s core business. His point is about not wasting a seat that is already won. A company with a strategic interest in only part of the framework can take the requests that fit its portfolio itself and broker the rest.
| What to compare | Direct delivery | Brokering |
|---|---|---|
| What your team does | Recruits and advises consultants, prepares CVs, answers each request | Broadcasts requests to partners, reviews the CVs that return, selects and submits the best |
| Who supplies the consultants | Your own network and recruiting | Partner companies and sub-providers |
| Where the revenue comes from | Consultants placed through your own pipeline | A fee on winning submissions, 15 percent in the example discussed |
| Set-up needed | Recruiters trained on templates and questionnaires, a mapped consultant network | Partnerships with sub-providers, a clear selection routine |
| Fits a company that | Wants delivery as a business line | Has a small recruitment team or a selective interest in the framework |
What is the broker model in a framework contract?
The company holding the contract invites partners to supply CVs, selects the best, submits them under its own contract and keeps a fee if the submission wins.
The model asks little of a recruitment team, which is why small teams use it. It still depends on a clear selection routine, because someone has to decide quickly which CVs look good and which do not before anything is pushed under the company’s name. Partners need to know the request and the template, so the same preparation described earlier applies, only at lower volume.
Why Placing Consultants Matters Beyond the Invoice
Marco points to a second return that does not appear in the first month’s revenue. Consultants placed inside a client organisation give the company a reason to meet the managers there. Meeting managers, in his experience, can start to open other routes to the same institution.
He adds a plain observation: a good relationship with a manager helps. A company whose consultants are delivering well inside a team has earned that conversation in a way a supplier with only paper submissions has not.
“On a bidding, you open the wallet, but it’s the delivery that takes the bills.”Marco Pincho
The line also sets up the internal argument. Bidding is where the company commits resources, and delivery is where it collects. A business that invests in the first and not the second pays the whole cost and receives a fraction of the return.
How to Make the Internal Case for Investing in Delivery
A bid manager who has won a seat is usually best placed to make this argument, and the framing matters. Marco’s suggested wording to management is that the bidding part is done, and now the company needs to invest in the delivery part.
A business case along those lines has a few parts:
- The seat already won, and the requests expected from the buyer’s cycle.
- The gap between the current team and the machine described above: people, network and data.
- The delivery model chosen: direct delivery, brokering, or direct delivery for requests inside your core expertise and brokering for the rest.
- A test of the process on a live request before scaling it.
- The approval route, since the investment may need sign-off from higher management.
On learning the process, Marco prefers onboarding that is hands-on. When he trains a client, he wants the person who will run the workflow to click through it themselves, because it is a richer experience than watching a shared screen. The same logic applies to the internal case: the person presenting it should have run a real request through the process first.
Evidence from comparable companies also helps. The enterprise testimonials page collects how other companies describe the effect on their CV operations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is framework contract delivery?
Framework contract delivery is the work that follows an award: receiving service requests, selecting and preparing consultants, submitting them on time and managing the relationship once they are placed. It is separate from the bidding work that wins the seat.
When should a company start preparing to answer service requests?
Before the first request arrives. Marco’s guidance is to be ready by December and January at the latest when the buyer’s cycle in his example starts producing new requests. Recruiting, training and network building each take longer than the deadline on a single request.
Can a small recruitment team handle a large framework contract?
Yes, through brokering. The company sends requests to partner sub-providers, selects the best CVs and submits them under its own contract, keeping a fee on winning submissions. Companies with a selective interest can also deliver the requests that fit their expertise and broker the rest.
How do you match consultants to a service request?
Load the job description against a database of structured profiles, review the ranked list with matched and missing skills, and contact the best candidates with the job description attached. A questionnaire sent to each consultant can then fill the gaps.
Can AI be used to rewrite consultant CVs for framework contracts?
It depends on the contract. Some frameworks prohibit AI in writing CV text, in which case the consultant must write their own summary. Checking the framework rules first is essential, and even light use such as formatting needs care.
Is a framework seat worth keeping if time and means work is not a core business?
Marco’s view is that a won seat should be monetised. Brokering lets a company earn from it without building a large recruitment operation, while it focuses its own effort on requests that fit its portfolio.
Final Thought
The tender win is the visible event, so it gets the celebration and the case study. The revenue sits further along, in the weeks when requests arrive and someone has to find the right consultant, check the gaps and submit before the deadline.
A company that prepares that stage in advance, chooses between direct delivery and brokering on purpose, and keeps its consultant data searchable has turned a bid into a business line. A company that does not has paid for a seat and left it empty.
Won a framework seat and short on capacity to answer the requests?
Bring one live service request and follow it from job description to ranked shortlist, gap list and CVs in the buyer’s format.
Book a demo with Marco Pincho
About the Author
Seven years of watching recruiters format the same CV three different ways for three different clients led Marco Pincho to build Sprint CV, an enterprise CV manager used by companies including VASS, Fujitsu, Sword Group, and Expleo to standardize CV creation and submission. He holds an Executive Master in IT Management from Solvay Brussels School and spends most weeks on calls with recruitment leaders and HR directors, working through documentation problems like the one covered in this article. Connect with Marco on LinkedIn
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