Should we have procurement reform or just improvement?
It seems like everyone has been jumping on the procurement reform bandwagon this year and has been saying that the government’s procurement system is broken. While reforming government procurement is a lofty goal and resonates well in the halls of Congress, the practicality is that it is more of a pre-election battle cry than a reality.
One organization, the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP), has taken a different approach, stating that the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR)—the rules that control government procurement—are fine and do not need to be overhauled. What is broken is the way the FAR is applied and interpreted in many government procurements.
According to APMP in their just-released survey report, Closing the Procurement Execution Gap, most government and industry professionals strongly agree about what improvements need to be made and how they can be done without reforming the FAR. I hope that business development and capture managers will share APMP’s findings with government procurement officials and help spread their recommendations about how to conduct better procurements. Here are some of the more interesting findings.
Email your comments to me at RLohfeld@LohfeldConsulting.com.
By Bob Lohfeld
This article was originally published October 16, 2014 in WashingtonTechnology.com.
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