Slapping ‘commercial’ on a contract does not make it so

I have been around long enough to have seen many hot trends and buzzwords in the government market.

In the 1990s, people talked endlessly about best value and performance-based contracting. The first decade of the 2000s was dominated by strategic sourcing and category management. Agile acquisition, digital services and better buying power followed in the 2010s.

Here in the 2020s: zero-trust, artificial intelligence, outcome-based contracting and accelerators are the buzzwords.

These are very real things and many of them have been disruptors in their own way. They all had to go through the hype cycle, but some never really lived up to the hype.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many companies were suddenly touting themselves as homeland security providers. Agencies also talked about their roles (real or desired) in supporting the homeland security mission.

I have been told multiple times over many years that when a new administration comes in, you should listen to the words they use to describe their priorities and strategies. Then use those same words when talking about your capabilities, or in the case of an agency, their mission strategies.

Sound and evergreen advice, but there are also a lot of risks.

Too often, I see administration words and topics get slapped on companies' marketing materials and websites without much substance. Agencies are not that much better in writing solicitation and other contract documents.

How often do we see “best value” on a solicitation, only to see that the evaluation criteria leaned on price as the deciding factor?

With this second Trump administration, the term “commercial” has been used a lot. The administration wants agencies to buy commercial products and services, and do so in a more commercial-like manner.

I’m now starting to see the use of the word “commercial” in ways that make little sense after reading deep into procurement documents.

Here is a great example: the Air Force on Wednesday released a sources sought notice for a contract to support the command-and-control infrastructure for the Minuteman III ballistic missiles.

Right at the top of the notice, the Air Force says they are planning a “commercial firm-fixed price contract” for systems engineering.

I did not blink at first. But in reading through the documents, I scratched my head because I could not see what makes this a commercial contract.

The services sure do not appear commercial – supporting nuclear C2 systems, intercontinental ballistic missile targeting software, and emergency war orders. The contractor is required to have top secret clearances.

The contractor also will be working on government-specific systems like the Minuteman Operational Targeting Program.

All of this is inherently governmental work and not something that can be found in commercial marketplaces.

The labor categories such as engineers could be commercial in nature, but applying those skills to nuclear weapons systems hardly makes it commercial.

Firm-fixed price contracting is a commercial model, but the government has used that type for decades. Cost-plus has been the government's preferred contract type over many decades.

The Air Force awarded the incumbent contract in 2021 to Siertek-Peerless Joint Ventur as firm-fixed price. According to Deltek data, commercial products/services procedures were not used.

I think the Air Force is trying to dress this up as a commercial contract by adding the word "commercial" to the opening paragraph of the sources sought notice.

That is the only place that the word commercial appears. That word is not used again in the rest of the sources sought notice and does not appear in the performance work statement either.

There may be a needed emphasis these days on commercial speed and efficiency, but just adding the words does not make it so.

In a way, this is the opposite of Shakespeare’s line that a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.

Calling a government contract “commercial” does not automatically make things faster or more efficient — it can often muddy the waters too.