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February 5, 2014 By AMK

Three IT procurement problems worth solving

The arduous process that small technology vendors must go through in order to contract with government agencies is preventing government innovation when we need it most. As the CEO of 12-person tech firm that recently went through the process, I have experienced this first hand.  [Note: This article represents the personal views of Kuang Chen is the CEO and founder of Captricty, a government contractor.]

While a partnership with the federal government is unusual for a company of our size, we got lucky. We were introduced early on to an internal advocate who saw the value of our solution to transform paper backlogs into digital data at the Food and Drug Administration — performing weeks of manual entry in hours to update a critical drug safety database. As we learned, even with a strong advocate, the procurement hurdles were significant. After getting proof of concept in two short weeks, it took two more months to prepare the paperwork for a security authorization to operate (ATO) and five months for a stop-gap contract. Even after clearing the original paper jam, we are without a contract to handle the additional demand that is now flooding our way.

So where should government begin when thinking about how to streamline the process?  Here are three observations:

  1. Security review is confusing and cumbersome.
  2. Complex contracting offers no simple path for a relatively small project.
  3. Existing procurement models don’t work for new technologies.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/technology-news/tech-insider/2014/01/analysis-three-procurement-problems-worth-solving/77918 

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition strategy, cybersecurity, FDA, information technology, innovation, IT, security, technology

September 19, 2013 By AMK

Departments underspent on small business R&D commercialization

Several departments underspent on small business programs for the  commercialization of research and development because they left out entire  component agencies from the calculations used to fund the programs, the Government Accountability Office says.

Under two federal programs, agencies must spend a certain percentage of their  outside research and development funding on small businesses R&D efforts  that align with federal priorities.

But the Transportation Department, for instance, excluded the Federal  Aviation Administration from its departmentwide calculation of outside R&D  spending, GAO says in a report released Sept. 9.  The Health and Human Services Department did the same with both the Centers  for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/departments-underspent-rd-commercialization/2013-09-10

 

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: CDC, DOT, FDA, GAO, HHS, innovation, R&D, research, SBIR, STTR, technology, technology transfer

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