The process of bidding on Work for which you hold the existing contract that is due to expire.
Arises frequently in government contracting, where procurement policy does not readily allow ongoing contracting between a government client and the contractor without benefit of periodic recompetition, no matter how well the contractor is performing the Work.
I wonder if the process of re-bidding might not be described as a symptom of lack of trust– either of the government to keep its contractors honest, or of the contractor to keep honest?
Jim T
Jim – I’d say it’s a mechanism for minimizing the need for trust, and for minimizing the potential for fraud and abuse in spending taxpayers’ money (aka public funds). There are likely contract mechanisms for keeping contractors looking for ways to control or cut costs, but these require contract management effort that likely exceeds the work involved in managing a re-competition. With less assurance of the result.