Opportunity for Finnish companies: NATO looking to buy winter supplies

Finnish companies are lagging severely behind Swedish ones in NATO procurements. Read about how you can get involved.

NATO is currently looking for suppliers for procurements of winter goods such as clothing and skis.

Lawyer Outi Jousi, who is responsible for public tender services at the Hannes Snellman firm, encourages Finnish companies to be active in public tenders, including for NATO. She says that Finland is lagging badly behind Sweden, for example.

“Under 1,800 Finnish companies have registered on the NATO list. Over 9,000 Swedish companies are already registered,” she says.

“Swedish companies are clearly very willing to seek new sales opportunities. I’m confident that Finnish companies will also be interested once they get more information.”

These figures are from the NATO online portal.

This code needed

NATO constantly puts procurements out to competitive tender, and there are active tenders under way now. They are searching for suppliers of winter clothing, air purifiers, data systems, ski boots, snowmobiles, sleds, firefighting equipment and tarpaulins.

A company can participate in competitive tenders once it has secured a code issued by NATO. When applying for the code, companies are asked for contact information, geographical location and other details.

“In addition, a company needs a suitability certificate, which it can get from the Defence Forces’ Logistics Command.”

The company uses the certificate to confirm it has sufficient technical and financial resources to participate in competitive tenders.

Important in competitive tenders

NATO often procures materials from several central purchasing organizations. The alliance posts new tenders on a range of online platforms. One such platform is here.

“I think these competitive tenders could contain interesting opportunities for Finnish subcontracting companies. However, a company should bear in mind that it has to reply to NATO tenders precisely the way NATO asks. It has to fill in every single field, otherwise the application can be denied,” Jousi explains.

She says that NATO also hopes that companies actively offer their product ranges which could be of use to the alliance.

Binding proposal

Jousi says that NATO tenders are also an opportunity for small businesses. She compares the opportunity for additional sales to Finnish competitive tenders.

“In Finnish public tenders, the likelihood of doing a deal is quite large. Studies show that tenders get an average of zero to three proposals. For NATO, we don’t know the numbers, but at present several hundred competitive tenders are under way.”

A submitted proposal is binding, obliging the company to supply the goods, but simply registering with NATO does not create any obligation.

When comparing proposals, NATO may consider the member state’s industrial rate of return, that is, how many contracts have been awarded to the country compared to how much has been sold to the country.

Contracts generally last a maximum of five years. NATO usually awards tenders based on price without negotiation, but in some cases, negotiations are also possible.

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