Center for Government Contracting News

Current government acquisition rules are depriving DoD from consistently getting the benefits of the best industry talent, the best commercial capabilities, and quicker transition and deployment of needed capabilities. If the regulatory burden and negative incentives are not addressed head on, no amount of outreach or training will bring businesses back into the defense marketplace—or keep them from leaving. . . . In this decisive decade, acquisition regulations and policy must be streamlined to deliver outcomes and informed by data gathered through continued analysis of the shrinking defense industrial base from multiple perspectives—and most importantly, through difficult conversations with industry partners.

This study sought to identify important trends in DoD’s supplier base and its rates of effective competition and market concentration, and importantly compare these trends with the rest of the federal government and its contractor base.

While the origins of the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) contracting program and its prime contracting goals date to 1958, the history of the program is one of ebbs and flows. While the SDB appellation has applied at both the prime and subcontracting level, this paper will concern itself with prime contracting opportunities. However, before examining the data on the SDB program, it is important to understand the origins and evolutions of the program, as they provide the context necessary to assess the current performance of the program.

George Mason University School of Business leaders, faculty, alumni, and friends gathered to celebrate the naming of the Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting. The Baroni Center is the first university center in the nation to address the business, policy, and regulatory issues surrounding government contracting, a $700 billion industry unique to the Washington, D.C., region.

The goal of the webinar is to discuss the challenges faced by the workforce to increase acquisition innovation and agility and explore approaches to modify incentives to achieve desired outcomes.

Against the backdrop of the increasing hostilities and competition globally, this panel discussed the importance of prototyping for the Department of Defense to quickly and effectively innovate and field emerging technologies. The discussion also included lessons learned from recent prototyping activities as well as best practices for meeting future requirements.

Tom Temin interviewed Jerry McGinn on ways to boost the surge capacity of the defense industrial base in the US.

In a government acquisition context, the term “second sourcing” describes the practice of using at least two different suppliers to provide goods and services that are comparable or identical in form and/or function. Second sourcing was more commonly employed as a procurement method in the 1980s to introduce greater competition into the defense industrial base and cut costs for component parts, but it has become a relatively rare practice in modern defense procurement. This webinar examines second sourcing as a possible strategy within the defense acquisition toolkit to help accomplish this and other goals. Is it feasible, or even preferable, to revitalize second sourcing in a resource-constrained procurement environment geared toward single suppliers? If so, how do we do it best?

The latest White Paper of the Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting, “Back to the Future? Second Sourcing in Defense Acquisitions” argues: “Second sourcing in particular offers one strategy to counter the DoD’s unsightly dependence on single and sole sources of supply. Second Sourcing does not provide a panacea to all the supply chain issues faced by DoD, but an increase in the use of second sourcing methods could be used to pivot the U.S. defense industrial base away from the current status quo of peacetime efficiency and towards a new baseline of readiness to ensure overmatch against competitors like Russia and China.”

From the Federal News Network Commentary written by Emily Murphy, Senior Fellow of the Baroni Center: Congress should act quickly to fix Section 876 so that multiple award contracts focus on meaningful competition, getting the best solution for the government at the best price and reducing administrative burdens on small contractors and contracting officers.