Prepare the brief
- Describe the business goal, the users and roles, the current systems and data, and what must be ready in the first stage.
- List the integrations (1C, payments, government portals, Telegram), where the system must run (cloud or your servers) and the languages.
- Ask for a fixed price per stage, not one figure for everything; it shows who understood the task.
Set the evaluation criteria in advance
- Relevant projects you can open and clients you can call, not just logos.
- The team that will actually work on your project, with names and roles.
- The proposed architecture, stages, acceptance criteria and support after launch.
- Price weighs, but rarely more than a third: the cheapest bid often comes back as change requests.
Public and donor-funded procurement
- Public bodies in Uzbekistan buy through the public procurement system and its rules; projects funded by the World Bank, the European Union or other donors follow the donor's procurement rules.
- In both cases the terms of reference, the evaluation method and the deadlines are fixed before bids are opened, so prepare them carefully.
Contract terms that protect you
- Stages with acceptance and payment after acceptance; ownership of the code and documents; access to the repository from day one.
- A warranty period, support terms with response times, and what happens if either side is late.
Questions and answers
- How many contractors should we invite?
- Three to five is usually enough. More bids take longer to compare and rarely bring a better result.
- How do we compare bids with very different prices?
- Ask each bidder to price the same stages and list what is excluded. Large gaps usually mean different scope, not different efficiency.
- Which IT companies in Uzbekistan have delivered donor-funded projects?
- Several. Eurosoft delivered the irrigation service fee system for a World Bank and European Union funded project and systems funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation for the Ministry of Water Resources.