All areas of government (national, state/provincial, and local) use written requirements to buy products or services to make purchasing fair and reduce costs.
Governments request competitive contract proposals when they believe there are more issues than initial cost in buying a needed product or service.
Other countries, states and local governments may also provide requirements for proposal preparation and evaluation criteria, although this is not always the case.
Government proposals are expensive to produce because of detailed requirements and necessary cost and scheduling information.
Experts estimate the cost of producing a successful government proposal to be in the range of 0.5% to 2% of the initial contract value.