A blog entry here yesterday on “Why File a COFC Protest” brought back some confusing memories.  I remember this study from a few years ago which is thought provoking, especially for companies bidding on contracts.  Protest study  .  In essence it concluded that “Their chance of receiving procurement contracts from the contested government agencies during the following four years drops by 68%, and they experience significant reductions in sales growth and employee growth. They receive fewer contracts also from other, non-contested, government agencies.”

This is interesting to me from two perspectives.  The first is from my consultant role when I assisted many times helping the government with source selection.  Too frequently I heard government evaluators expressing negative comments about particular offerors that protested prior acquisitions.  I cautioned them to just stick with the evaluation without bias.  The other was with my government career.  Many of what the agency considered as the best performing contractors  rarely protested.  Several expressed very similar comments  - if they lost an award, it was the their own fault for not better understanding the agency needs.  Of course these all involved technical/price tradeoff approaches.  

This is a fear of many contractors.  As a result they will not file what are often meritorious protests for fear of reprisal by the contracting officer.  This includes not only the fear of not getting future awards, but also reprisal in regard to current contracts such as a bad CPARS, increased scrutiny in regard to contract administration and even a possible termination.