Over the last decade, organizational purchasers have increasingly employed competitive tenders when purchasing products or services. These tenders are initiated and controlled by professional purchasing agents. In order to acquire profitable deals, vendors need to adapt to individual tenderrules and tailortheir offerings to uniquely fit a specific customer's needs. During the last fiscal year, the United States Army, as a single institution, purchased goods and services worth 200 billion USD via competitive tenders. In February 2011, Boeing announced that it had won a 3 5 billion USD deal in a historical tender of the United States Air Force. The other participants, including Northrop Grumman and EADS, left this particular competition empty-handed. Tenders are not a phenomenon exclusive to public institutions or the airline industry. Due to rapidly developing Internet technology and highly transparent national and international markets, the rise of tenders may be observed in many other industries (Fuller 2004; Jap 2007; Jap and Haruvy 2008). Customers intend to enhance comparability among vendors' proposed solutions while establishing objective supplier selection criteria. By preparing a detailed requirement specification, customers avoid unneeded functions and components of the purchased objects, thereby reducing overall procurement costs (Chen 2008).
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