Coalition For Government Procurement | The Contracting Education Academy

October 13, 2017 By cs

The federal market: Is competition in the eye of the beholder?

Two weeks ago, the Coalition for Government Procurement was privileged to participate in the Section 809 Panel’s September stakeholder meeting, an opportunity, for which, the Coalition is grateful, as it provided for a wide-ranging conversation on current challenges and opportunities facing the federal procurement system.

The Coalition also appreciates the opportunity to provide our 29 “common sense” recommendations to improve and streamline federal procurement.

Chief among the issues discussed was the role of Multiple Award IDIQ (MAIDIQ) contracts in supporting agency missions. With regard to MAIDIQs, the conversation quickly turned to the degree, manner, and role of competition in the federal market. It was an interesting and dynamic discussion.

The Coalition highlighted a measure of market concentration which is used by both economists and the Justice Department when evaluating anti-trust issues, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). The HHI scale for measuring market concentration ranges from 0 to 10,000, with 0 representing “perfect competition,” and 10,000 representing a pure monopoly. Based on various market concentration criteria, a market is scored along this scale. Basically, the lower a market’s HHI score, the higher that market’s level of competition and vice-versa. When considering the HHI, we find some interesting results.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/commentary/2017/10/the-federal-market-is-competition-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder/

April 14, 2017 By cs

Progress impeded, acquisition workforce anxious as bid protests continue to multiply

If you want to strike a nerve with federal acquisition managers, bring up bid protests.

The number of protests have all but doubled over the past decade, and that’s creating a significant amount of consternation among the ranks of acquisition personnel at the General Services Administration (GSA).

Janine Wilkinson, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service national account manager for the Army, said that this was one of the main things federal customers need from industry during a Coalition for Government Procurement panel on April 4, and other GSA officials quickly piled on.

“It’s not just the Army, it’s across the spectrum of customers,” Mark Aucello, director of GSA’s Assisted Acquisition Services client support center for the Mid-Atlantic region, said. “We understand, if we do something wrong, and there’s a legitimate reason to protest, then protest. That’s what it’s there for. But … [when] it’s ‘I want to keep it another six months because I’m the incumbent and I lost,’ I think that’s the sort of thing that creates a lot of work and expense on the government’s part.”

Tom Howder, assistant commissioner for AAS, agreed, noting that nationally, there’s been an increase in protests, which lengthens the acquisition time frame and impacts the workforce, who frequently have to be reassured that the number of bid protests are not a reflection on the quality of their work.

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition/2017/04/progress-impeded-acquisition-workforce-anxious-bid-protests-continue-multiply/

If you want to strike a nerve with federal acquisition managers, bring up bid protests.

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