During my nearly 40 years as a Contracting Officer and government proposal consultant, I have seen some systemic problems on both sides of the contracting desk that continue to plague the federal contracting arena. Here are some things that, if we could change them, would make contracting much more successful for both industry and government agencies.
Let’s start with the government side of the desk.
- Sloppy Contracting. More and more we are seeing what can only be described as sloppy contracting. Here’s just one example: Recently one of our community members found an opportunity to provide administrative support services advertised in FBO as a combined synopsis/solicitation. Proposal requirements included resumes, past performance references, pricing, and a technical proposal, so a substantial amount of work. They submitted questions and the government provides answers. All offerors spent considerable time and resources recruiting and vetting several potential candidates for the administrative positions, pricing the effort, and putting together their best technical approach and past performance references.
A few days before the proposals were due they noticed a slight discrepancy in the proposal submittal instructions, so our client called the Contracting Officer. Imagine their shock when he said “Oh, we already awarded that under a GSA Schedule contract.” The only reason they found out was because they called for a small clarification. Because the CO did not cancel the synopsis/solicitation, they (and all other potential offerors), wasted time and effort pursuing a nonexistent opportunity. While not illegal or unethical, these mistakes cost industry valuable time and resources, while undermining the respect contractors have for government contracting officials overall. (Wonder what the CO did with the proposals that were submitted?)
- Poor or Inappropriate Use of LPTA Competitions. I think that one of the most common mistakes government contracting offices make is to use Lowest Priced Technically Acceptable (LPTA) competitions inappropriately. We see this time and again where the requiring agency is unhappy with their awarded contractor’s performance (let’s say, janitorial services). The contracting office used LPTA and selected the lowest priced offeror. But the awarded contractor does not perform satisfactory services, most probably because they underbid so they could win the contract and now cannot afford to provide the staff required to get the job done. So a year later, the agency resolicits to find a replacement service provider using LPTA again. And again, the selected service provider gives the agency exactly what you’d expect: poor services because the offeror can’t afford to use sufficient time and manpower to perform the services acceptably. And the whole process repeats again.
With today’s environment if “get more done with less,” it’s natural to want to use the easiest possible method for selecting companies for contract award even when best value will result in a better selection. Repeating the same process while expecting different results is a mistake, and costs the tax payer for having to compete needed purchases over and over.
- Believing that All Contractors are Out to Rip-Off the Government. Unfortunately, this attitude is found in many contracting agencies. While there are a few contractors who do go out of their way to inflate their proposals and find ways to cut corners during delivery to increase their profits, most contractors are run by ethical people who only want to do a good job, provide needed products and services, and make a reasonable profit while they are doing it. This negative attitude by government contracting personnel results in disrespect of the contractor’s service providers, conflict on the job, and poor performance overall. It’s sort of a “self-fulfilling prophesy” where the government expects poor performance and ends up getting it because of their inability to work in a businesslike fashion with their providers.
Bottom line is, there simply is no substitute for being professional in work performance, communications and in business relationships. Negative attitudes, even when not verbalized, show up in subtle ways and encourages a “them vs us” environment, instead of a successful team environment.
In my next blog, I’ll take a look at the Contractors’ side.