Comparison of questionnaire and text mining in identifying the criteria that affect the bid/no-bid decision of Consultant firms in international bidding for the water industry

One of the most important decisions of the water industry consultants is the decision to bid or not to bid in the international tenders, because the consequences of this decision have a major role in the success or failure of these organizations. The purpose of this study is to identify the criteria that affect the bid/no-bid decision in international bidding for the water industry using two different tools, the first tool consisting of statistical analysis on questionnaires and the second tool, including text mining. 5 main criteria with 62 sub-criteria and their weight were identified through questionnaire analysis, and 5 main criteria with 35 sub-criteria were identified through interview text mining. Given the high similarity of the criteria and sub-criteria identified by the two tools, the final result of the study consists of 5 main criteria and 68 sub-criteria. The main criteria in order of importance are financial issues, bidding company considerations, employer specifications, project specifications and contract specifications, bidders, and competitors. The results show a high degree of alignment between these tools. From the high concordance of the results of these two tools, it can be concluded that the identified factors have acceptable accuracy and generalizability and that the firms can use these factors.