Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, has introduced the Acquisition System Improvement Act, H.R. 4228, which would create an Acquisition Professional Exchange Program for the federal government and industry, among other things.
The Office of Management and Budget initiative to manage more effectively by using business cases has put more emphasis on acquisition strategies that measure results. In a world with performance-based contracts, we still measure results in the usual areas of cost, quality, delivery and customer satisfaction. It's in customer satisfaction that companies and agencies should be developing new approaches.
Teams of industry and government experts gather every day to address requirements and solve problems in the federal acquisition process. That process increasingly involves performance-based contracting approaches in which contractors make oral presentations for both market research and contract negotiation.
The increasing emphasis on performance-based acquisitions and other results-oriented initiatives has sparked a need for cultural change in government and industry.
Commercial spending for research and development has increased substantially in recent years. For every federal dollar invested in this area, business now invests about $2. As a result, the private sector now plays an increasingly important role in developing new technologies and influencing acquisitions for some of the most critical federal programs.
Leading corporations have adopted strategic sourcing and enterprise spend-management initiatives to improve efficiency and enhance the bottom line. Some government agencies are watching and preparing to follow suit.
Enterprisewide solutions can optimize results and leverage available funding for federal agencies. But sometimes they also create potential for organizational conflicts of interest or related appearance issues.
As contractor and government teams prepare and evaluate proposals, we are reminded that federal agencies increasingly depend on contractors to fulfill their missions. But what can be done when the contract isn't going well, and the contractor and government teams find themselves in situations that aren't working?
In recent testimony on Capitol Hill, Comptroller General David Walker stressed that, for agencies to compete successfully in public-private competitions, they "should consider how competitive sourcing relates to human capital, improved financial performance, expanded reliance on electronic government and budget and performance integration."
The Department of Homeland Security recently awarded a six-year contract worth more than $100 million to Dell Inc. for a Microsoft software enterprise license. The deal will support approximately 144,000 personnel, and promises to produce significant savings for the agency.
While more than 1,200 government employees recently attended Office of Management and Budget workshops on preparing business cases, less than 1 percent were from acquisition or procurement offices.
The first guiding principle of the Federal Acquisition System is to satisfy the customer in terms of cost, quality and timeliness of the delivered product or service -- a great principle, even if measuring the results is sometimes easier in concept than in execution.
In recent years, the term due diligence has become part of the acquisition lexicon. Ideally, it describes the process and period during which competitors learn in detail about an agency's needs and practices before they propose solutions. It involves greater information sharing and more open communications by government agencies.
<FONT SIZE=2>In this era of best value and creative new approaches, who really bids in the traditional sense anymore? And who believes they can establish a long-term, win-win relationship by first clobbering their potential partner in a bitter round of litigation? </FONT>
