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DoD's Gotta "Pick Some Winners" Then Nurture Them, Protecting Them from the Pain of the Defense Acquisition System


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A group overseen by the deputy defense secretary is working aggressively to address the “pain points” faced by small companies who want to work with the Pentagon, according to Heidi Shyu, the under secretary of defense for research and engineering.

She said she presented to the deputy defense secretary a collection of issues she heard during meetings with small companies.

Kathleen Hicks, the No. 2 civilian in the department, said, ‘This is great. Let’s go tackle this,’” and then brought in other Pentagon offices, including acquisition and sustainment, the chief information office and the chief digital and artificial intelligence office, among others, Shyu said.

Now, those offices are tackling a variety of issues, from security clearance issues to workforce challenges. Hicks is holding monthly meetings on their progress, Shyu said.

The goal is to “simplify our contracting so we can award small companies much quicker, rather than taking many, many months,” she added. “We absolutely are trying to tackle a lot of acquisition pain points.”

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To take advantage of the needed capabilities offered by technology startups, the military has to focus more specifically on a smaller number of companies to nurture, the Air Force’s top officer said Saturday.

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The goal is to “simplify our contracting so we can award small companies much quicker, rather than taking many, many months,”

The only way this can be done is through major radical changes, which isn’t going to happen.  By that I mean new legislation and regulatory changes.  The rules and processes are in place.  Adhering to them takes a long time.  So unless Congress and the Administration want this to occur, it’s only talk.

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1 hour ago, formerfed said:

major radical changes

I pray we do not allow any changes to foreign ownership, control, or influence rules determining responsibility of these small firms. That has been a major problem of their entrance to the marketplace all along, you know.  Many Silicon Valley venture capitalists are actually C C   P owned.

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I've been thinking about this. What if -- and I know it's a BIG What if --

What if the Pentagon created a Mentorship program for contractors? Don't have primes mentor subs; have acquisition officials in the Pentagon or elsewhere in the DoD actually mentor companies.

  • 1. Application process, focusing on WHY DoD should mentor these companies.
  • 2. Review and vetting. To identify and exclude companies that, among other things, might have unsavory FOCI.
  • 3. Certify companies as being official DoD proteges.
  • 4. Exempt proteges from the competitive process; enable sole-source awards to certified Pentagon protégé firms
  • 5. Other benefits TBD.
  • 6. Partner and mentor and build a long-term relationship.

Now, I know there are hundreds of reasons that the above will be a nearly impossible challenge. Statutes, regulations, CICA, etc. Got it.

But what if?

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How bout this: Scale your plan down from some Pentagon program more granular, to the actual business relationship between a buyer and seller, and what you’ve described above is the same thing as the incumbent advantage/foothold in many program offices in sustainment.

What we could do is mimic this natural tendency with a successful program in Silicon Valley.  Has there been one of those yet…?

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7 hours ago, here_2_help said:

I've been thinking about this. What if -- and I know it's a BIG What if --

What if the Pentagon created a Mentorship program for contractors? Don't have primes mentor subs; have acquisition officials in the Pentagon or elsewhere in the DoD actually mentor companies.

  • 1. Application process, focusing on WHY DoD should mentor these companies.
  • 2. Review and vetting. To identify and exclude companies that, among other things, might have unsavory FOCI.
  • 3. Certify companies as being official DoD proteges.
  • 4. Exempt proteges from the competitive process; enable sole-source awards to certified Pentagon protégé firms
  • 5. Other benefits TBD.
  • 6. Partner and mentor and build a long-term relationship.

Now, I know there are hundreds of reasons that the above will be a nearly impossible challenge. Statutes, regulations, CICA, etc. Got it.

But what if?

Kinda like contracting with Leonard Glen Francis and the Leonard Marine Group?   There were many close relationships fostered between senior and Junior Navy officials and Leonard.  🤪

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21 hours ago, here_2_help said:

What if the Pentagon created a Mentorship program for contractors? Don't have primes mentor subs; have acquisition officials in the Pentagon or elsewhere in the DoD actually mentor companies.

  • 1. Application process, focusing on WHY DoD should mentor these companies.

Doing business with DoD is unique but I don’t see learning how is as bad as the original article claims.  If a company has some unique offerings or at least offerings with few competitive sources, they need help if they successfully want to sell to DoD.  All that’s usually needed is recruiting a marketing/sales expert.

The article talks about “pain points” of small businesses dealing with the Pentagon.  That’s a reality.  But the question is do we need just more small businesses?  For many procurements, contract awards take a very long time because there are so many offerors being considered.  Many don’t stand a chance of being successful but propose anyway.  In those instances the last thing COs need are even more companies proposing.

But there are some instances where small companies just aren’t overly thrilled doing business with the government.  The government can benefit from reaching out to those firms.  That’s where I think a mentorship program like this might be beneficial.  Companies would have to have special offerings that aren’t readily available from other sources.  In addition, those offerings likely wouldn’t be feasible to acquire through other means like OTAs. 

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