Wifcon has a new blogger -- Sterling

[Guest Vern Edwards]

Our new blogger, Sterling Whitehead, says that you need to take a class about Chinese procurement practices:

A comprehensive study on Chinese procurement practices and policies could be integrated into a class titled Comparative Procurement Regimes studying American, European and Chinese procurement models. This class would be very helpful in training the next generation of contracting professionals in the same way a comparative government helps you understand your own government.

What do you think?

[C Culham]

Such a class could be beneficial especially for the more experienced contract professional. Could be as well for a intensive training program like DHS's Acquisition Professional Intern Program or Navy's Acquisition Intern Program.

I do wonder as the premise of the class is that there are best practices that could be utilized in a political structure completly different than China. But I guess if it is felt that such best practices do exist, providing a view of what they are for consideration and use within the US Federal strucure should be considered.

[Guest Vern Edwards]

How would the class be beneficial?

[MBrown]

While other nations' acquisition laws and/or practices might make for some interesting professional or hobby reading, this should not equate to a requirement for federal acquisition professionals to study and/or adopt such practices. Indeed, I would consider such a program of study a waste of government resources if it were to be included in any type of mandatory certification curriculum. The vast majority of federal acquisition professionals are not policy makers. Instead, we are persons charged with following and implementing Acts of Congress, executive agency regulations and executive agency policy. Inserting a "What does the international community do?" / "What does China do?" approach into determining value for the United States on a federal acquisition is not a gorge that we ought to be traversing.

Perhaps, if you are a high-level policy maker, a comparative course of study would be beneficial to you (i.e., Master's Thesis). For the rest of the acquisition community, I recommend a focus on the core contracting competencies which (WIFCON readers excepted from this generalization) are lagging in many acquisition offices.

[policyguy]

I don't see any value in this. As Vern has stated previously "...contracting with the U.S. government is the most complex business in the world. It's right up there with trading derivatives. There are countless rules and contract clauses, many of which are exceedingly hard to understand..."

I would much better spend time and resources gaining a better understanding of contracting with the U.S. Government then China.

[Whynot]

Taiwan or Beijing?

It might come in handy for some FMS contracting with Taiwan, always good to know your customer.

[C Culham]

A basis for understanding one's own government as noted by the bloger. Also exposure to something different to gain insight, just as one might gain insight from reading fiction, and to better understand a competitor.

[formerfed]

A lot of things we do in procurement aren't based in law or regulation but in habit. Learning about what others do, especially from other countries, is informative and might spark some new ideas. For example, many European nations and Japan use outcome-based commisionning contracts, which carries the concept of performance-based to another level. Also many things we do now and take for granted were thought almost as unheard of years ago. This includes use of the Purchase Card for government buying or adopting technical/price tradeoff process to things other than major weapon systems or R&D. Or even use of past performance for source selections.

Anything that helps in learning and improving is worth considering.

[rdy2retire]

I agree with "formerfed"... many things we do in acquisition are habit-based and are not necessarily required by law/regulation. I am not sure the benefits that might be realized from launching such a class would overcome the cost to launch and maintain the class, especially since one can search almost anything on the Internet. I routinely use the Internet to see how other agencies and governments are contracting for supplies and services. Also, the acquisition community itself is fairly small in nature – I can’t tell you how many times in my career I have used the “phone-a-friend,” philosophy for help and just plain old feedback. I am not saying I wouldn’t be interested to know how other countries conduct their contracting business, I just don’t think a formal class is the method to do that; maybe a virtual teleconference seminar?

[Zauberer]

Dan Gordon and Chris Yukins teach a Comparative Procurement course at GWU law school. I took it during my LLM and enjoyed it very much. It was interesting at a very high level and I enjoyed the course. Those types of courses can be interesting for people who enjoy analyzing policy, but I'm not sure that they really help contracting professionals develop their skills in US government contracting.

Sterling Whitehead also posted this on the NCMA's Linkedin page and it has generated a lively discussion there as well.

[Guest Vern Edwards]

The current workforce does not know what it needs to know and cannot do what it needs to do to get the job done efficiently and within the law. For the Government to spend time and money to teach its acquisition workforce how the Chinese conduct acquisitions would be a ridiculous waste of time and money. GWU's interest in foreign procurement is purely academic and appropriate, because it is a university. That's why you can take a course there on phenomenology.