I’m passing along this article from Bloomberg on the top ten procurement challenges cities face.
Of particular interest to me is #7, managing very large contracts where there is very little competition. Federally, it seems since CICA there’s been a focus on maximizing competition to achieve best value, emphasizing receiving multiple proposals over negotiation and performance and contract management. IDIQs are rarely single award, for example. I tend to believe that government contracting professionals view competition without negotiation as a safer way to “check the box” and avoid protests on the grounds of unequal exchange of information between government and a deal’s various offerors.
That this has been identified as a problem at the local level suggests this may be a competency issue, rather than one brought on by the federal regulatory framework (though my guess is the latter contributed to the former for the U.S. government).
We recently saw a massive unilateral contract action on the F-35 program. The attention that brought in media (OK, trade media) suggests it’s the exception that proves the rule, and that the buy-side mostly views postaward contract management as “administrative” paper pushing. Depending on the competitive environment for a requirement, this may leave value on the table.
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Jason Bakke
Proposal Manager
Censeo Consulting Group (Censeo)
Washington DC
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