A number of startups have launched to automate the tender application process as well as be the online home for this tenders and we think they were doing a great job.
Now, Nation Tenders has been launched by Nation Media Group, East Africa’s largest media house to make it possible to read, search, classify and share tenders on the go wherever you are and your mobile phone.
According to Nation Media Group, “Organizations, be they companies, non-profits or governments, will benefit from reaching their clients through their mobile phones. A user can set up email notification when tenders that match specific requirements are posted, and share them through email and social media.”
Nation has tenders on its print runs so it’s promising to reproduce them to its app as long as the advertisers agree. Nation Media Group says the tenders in the app will be classified by Tender Number, Type of Tender, Industry, Category of Service, Organization Tendering, Deadline and Country.
To use the app. Users will have to sign up with your email address and mobile phone number which we guess few will be wanting to do because unlike social media platforms, tendering is a corporate thing and the person signing up to the app might be an internet in a huge corporation who would not like to give out their numbers to another guy on the other end running the Nation Tender systems.
With Nation Tenders launch, our friends at Tenderpreneur.net‘s will have to work harder than expected and even more for the cool guys at TenderSoko and TendersUnlimited.
The challenge for Nation Media Group will be to monetize this apps. It has tried with Nsoko jobs and Nsoko property and Nsoko Motors and has failed flat and it had no reason thinking it will make it in tenders but a friend says NMG can up their advertising rates by including a mobile package to Tender listings which might be a great move for NMG but it seems the group is yet to get online business apart from news otherwise it would be runing the biggest classifieds platforms in East Africa just like Naspers has built in South Africa and beyond. Ringier has tried its luck too and has also invested in numerous ecommerce and classifieds ventures in Kenya it has invested in Rupu and PigiaMe while in Nigeria it has invested in Ady.ng and Pulse-a Ghafla like site. 
Nation Media Group will have to grow up and invest in people who know stuff. Apart from its main news website Nation.co.ke which is easy to run as any news site, the firm made another blunder by shutting down its NairobiNews (now revamped) instead of just closing the print version alone.,