Capability statement examples: what the ones that win actually look like.
We have designed and rewritten capability statements for Australian engineering, drilling, mining services and trades businesses for two decades, and reviewed hundreds more as part of the procurement processes they went into. The good ones share a structure. The weak ones share the same six mistakes. Here is both.
What a capability statement is for
A capability statement has one job: to get a procurement officer or a tier-1 contractor to shortlist you. It is not a brochure and it is not a company history. The reader is usually assessing thirty documents in an afternoon, looking for reasons to cut the list to five. Everything on the page is either helping them keep you or helping them drop you.
Example one: the single-page drilling contractor
A WA drilling contractor with three rigs and twenty staff. Page one, top third: the company name, the ABN, the services in four words each, and three numbers that matter to a mine site: metres drilled last year, lost-time injury frequency rate, and years operating. Middle third: the rig fleet as a table, with capacity and availability. Bottom third: four named projects with client, scope and dates, and the certifications as logos. One page, because a small contractor is competing on clarity and safety record, not on breadth.
What it gets right: every claim is a number or a name. There is no paragraph that says the company is committed to excellence.
Example two: the multi-division engineering firm
A national engineering business with fabrication, maintenance and project management divisions. Eight pages, one per division plus a cover, a summary and a compliance page. Each division page has the same layout: capability list, capacity figures, three projects, key personnel with qualifications. The summary page is the one the procurement officer actually reads: a matrix of divisions against the sectors served, so a reader from a mining client sees in ten seconds which divisions are relevant.
What it gets right: consistency. The reader learns the layout on page two and never has to relearn it. The compliance page lists every certification with its expiry date, which saves the reader an email.
Example three: the trades business chasing government panels
An electrical contractor moving from private work into local-government panels. Two pages. Page one is the standard capability layout. Page two is built entirely around the panel criteria: a heading per criterion, in the panel's own words, with the evidence underneath. Insurance certificates, licence numbers, WHS management system, Indigenous procurement participation, local employment figures.
What it gets right: it answers the questions the assessor is scoring, in the order they score them. Most capability statements make the assessor hunt.
The six mistakes that lose shortlists
- A mission statement on page one. Nobody has ever been shortlisted for their values paragraph. Put the services and the numbers there instead.
- Stock imagery. A photo of a generic hard hat tells the reader you do not have photos of your own work. Real site photography, even from a phone, beats it.
- No numbers. Years operating, staff count, fleet size, safety statistics, metres, tonnes, dollars. If the document has no figures, it has no evidence.
- Projects without clients or dates. An unnamed project is a claim; a named one is a reference. Get permission and name them.
- Certifications without expiry dates. The assessor has to verify them anyway. Show the dates and the certificate numbers.
- A PDF that does not match the website. The assessor will look you up. If the site says something different, both documents lose credibility.
How to build yours
Start with the panel or client you want most, and get the criteria they score. Structure the document around those criteria before you write a word of copy. Then collect the evidence: numbers, named projects, photographs, certificates. The design comes last, and its only job is to make the evidence scannable. A capability statement design engagement with us follows exactly that order, which is why the first meeting is about your target panel rather than your logo.
If you already have one and want to know how it would score, the capability statement audit reviews it against the criteria of the panel you name.
Chasing a tier-1 panel or a government prequalification? We design capability statements for engineering, mining services, drilling and trades firms across Australia.
See the capability statement service