ACQUISITION BUREAUCRACY STRIKES BACK

In this episode Strategic Institute discusses the forces pushing back against innovation in business processes for federal R&D.    

Other Transactions authorities are flexible contracts that permit the government to experiment with different business approaches and arrangements in effort to improve the delivery of the fruits of federal R&D activities.  They are intended to be used by smart interdisciplinary teams, equipped with high levels of business acumen, creativity, and critical thinking skills to deliver solutions to challenges and normative problems facing the DoD and more broadly. They are best matched with intellectual prowess and awareness.  

When it comes to federal acquisition the government created the game, makes the rules, controls the board, and most of the players.  It represents a system by and for insiders.  It has partitioned itself off.  There are “kept” contractors who cannot compete commercially due to all the additional regulatory overhead, and highly innovative commercial companies that are functionally locked out.  The divide, think wall, that favors the few while excluding the many, is known as Federal Acquisition Regulations.  The “kept contractors” welcome every new rule and regulation, it is at the core of their business model.  They’ll just hire more people to deal with the new regulation and charge it to the taxpayer. The government eliminates their competition and increases timelines - cha-ching!  Another feature of the system is that it is so irrational, arcane, and esoteric that legions of high-priced go-betweens and consultants, often former federal officials, familiar with the inner workings, are employed to decipher and translate to those outside the system.  There are powerful interests and forces maintaining the status quo, while there is ostensibly no incentives or support to do anything else.