“The process for winning government contracts is truly based on the ability of a supplier to legitimately and transparently win preference with government buyers.”
Judy Bradt, Washington-based expert author whose new book discusses her more than 20 years helping 6,000 clients to win in excess of $300 million in U.S. Government contracts
It never ceases to amaze me when a supplier cries foul in terms of the government bid process claiming unfair, or in the case of Google relative to the DOI awarding a contract to Microsoft, “unduly restrictive of competition.” One cannot help but wonder if such outcries are rooted in a false entitlement mindset or, a misguided understanding of transparency.
Let’s face it, and in line with Bradt’s winning preference with government buyers statement referenced above, whether in the public or private sectors people ultimately buy from someone they know, like and trust . . . period!
Anyone who has competed for and won large contracts understand this underlying principal, and the corresponding realization that “Transparency is not the holding fast to the illusion of a level playing field, but is achieved through a clear understanding of the layout of the field itself.”
On many occasions, including during my presentations on transparency in the government procurement process in which I include the above quote, I try to drive the know, like and trust concept home as early in the talk as possible.
In conjunction with another point of sage advice from Bradt who stresses that “waiting until an RFP/RFQ is issued is like showing up at the starting line of a long race without training and expecting to win,” relationships in which there is a well established, confident rapport shape the decision-making process long before an RFQ is actually released for bidding. This is especially true as the cost and complexity of the goods or services being acquired exponentially increase. Or as I like to put it, when I go to the corner store to buy a carton of milk, I do not really care if I know or like the person behind the counter, I just want to make sure that the milk is fresh. However, if I am purchasing a house or looking for a new dentist, you can be darn sure that I am going to want to not only have a rapport with the person in whose abilities I will be relying, but also like and trust them.
The time to start building this level of relationship is not during the response to bid process. Unfortunately, this is the mistake that most vendors make, as they consider the issuance of an RFQ as the starting point in terms of pursuing government contracts, thereby ignoring what Bradt calls “the five critical pre-RFQ tasks that enable bidders to win true preference status.”
Within this reality framework, the real issue with the Google complaint has little to do with an exclusionary practice on the part of the government, and more to do with the company’s inability to effectively build the necessary know, like and trust rapport that creates the confidence in their ability to deliver a solution that meets the buyer’s requirements.
This is a linchpin issue as illustrated in a comment by Karen Evans during a Roundtable discussion on government transparency. Evans, who was the U.S. Federal Government’s CIO under the Bush Administration overseeing in excess of $70 billion in IT spend during her tenure, highlighted the fact that one of the key differences between how transparency is viewed in the private sector versus the public sector originates in the reporting hierarchy.
The fact is that within the private sector Evans stressed, “your board is a known quantity that share common interests such as market share, profitability and stock value.” Even though “opinion regarding the best route to achieve the desired results may differ, the goals are ultimately much clearer and less convoluted by partisan or regional interests.”
“This of course is a factor in the public sector” the CIO continued, as the public sector board is the “535 people in the House of Representatives in the Senate, where jurisdictional interests and competing priorities contribute, at least in part, to the risk averse lens through which transparency is viewed.”
“This aversion to risk, in essence exposing oneself to open criticism in the pages of say the Washington Post” according to Evans, “prevents people from the taking the kind of necessary risks that are required to improve services.”
In other words, it is not the features, functions and benefits overview of a particular product or service that counts but, the relationship building process that establishes the necessary trust in said benefits so as to substantially reduce and even eliminate the risk to which Evans has referred.
Or to put it more succinctly, Google should spend less time with their head in the product cloud, and more time on the ground building meaningful relationships that replace fear, uncertainty and doubt “FUD,” with a know, like and trust value proposition.
In the meantime, here is the link to my Keynote audio/PowerPoint keynote address in Washington, as well as the resulting white paper from the Roundtable discussion on Transparency in the Government Procurement Process. (NOTE: you can also listen to the on-demand broadcast “LIVE EVENT FEED: 3rd Annual Business of Government Summit (Day 1, Roundtable)” in which the guest panel included Evans, IACCM CEO Tim Cummins, Judy Bradt and 30 plus year public sector veteran and author of the Towards Tesco – improving public sector procurement paper Colin Cram.)
Also check out our 7-Part Jump Start Government Contract series with Judy Bradt, which aired earlier this year on the PI Window on Business Show on Blog Talk Radio.
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Procurement Insights 
Bernard vanHaeften
November 3, 2010
I would just like to pick up on two of the points that Jon raised in this blog:
1. Transparency & the ‘Level Playing Field’. I am continually surprised that public sector buyers in the UK equate one with the other. The transparency process employ should encourage bidders to participate in public sector contracts by providing clear details of what is required and how the bid will be evaluated. This does not mean that it’s a level playing field. All the bidders that participate will attempt to offer something which makes their bid more attractive – this could be cost, familiarity, or in Microsoft’s case, excellent market presence and penetration.
2. Early engagement. Jon’s comment that bidders should not wait until the RFQ is issued is well made. Those companies which engaged early generally have a better understanding of what the buyer thinks about (a) what a good supplier may look like and (b) future requirements. Understanding both these points leads us back to my first comment on the level playing field.
Many of my former colleagues were so frightened of the EU Public Sector procurement legislation that they completely disengaged from their supplier base. I believe that there is a direct correlation between this detachment and the observations made in Sir Philip Green’s Efficiency Review in which he questioned the competence of some public sector buyers.
Jon W. van Horne
November 3, 2010
Jon, your article has many good points regarding marketing to the federal government, however I believe it lacks an appreciation for the legal and policy underpinnings of the federal procurement system.
“Transparency” ultimately is not a need or requirement of the participants in the procurement process, neither the buyers nor the sellers; it is a need of those outside of process who have a vested interest in the use of public funds, the taxpayers. As a public function, federal procurement must be conducted in a manner that can demonstrate that it keeps the best interests of the government paramount. The legal structure of public procurement that has developed over the life of the republic, an extensive set of statutes and regulations, has at its core the policy that free and open competition delivers procurement results that are in the best interest of the government.
As with all federal activity, the means to assure that over the long run government officials abide by the policies embodied in the laws and regulations that constitute the public procurement process is the right of those with a direct interest in that procurement activity to seek review and redress from the judicial system. In the arena of federal procurement, the remedy established is the bid protest process. Bid protests are the legal system’s policing mechanism to assure that the procurement laws and regulations are being followed. The bid protest remedies are primarily the jurisdiction of the Government Accountability Office (to which the Air Force tanker protest was taken) and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims (to which Google took its protest). The bid protest process is a venerable and well understood aspect of public procurement. At its best, the availability of the bid protest remedy encourages government personnel to see that the procurement rules are followed. I will admit that with really large procurements it is almost a given that regardless of what the agency does there will be a protest. While that may be annoying and frustrating, the alternative scenario where government personnel can exercise personal prejudices in the marketplace without any means to challenge improper and illegal activity would be worse for the procurement process and for the taxpayer.
The complaint Google filed last Friday states a very straight forward violation of federal procurement law. Essentially, DOI chose the Microsoft solution even before the RFQ was issued. The DOI selection of Microsoft is based on an internal DOI determination (apparently resulting from internal, non-public discussions) that Microsoft has the only product that meets DOI’s requirements. DOI was unwilling to state in neutral terms what its requirements were and then see what the marketplace offered to meet those requirements. Competitive evaluations are neither simple nor easy and I can see how it is much easier to just pick the guys with whom you would prefer to do business and not worry about all those complex technical requirements.
From the Google complaint, it would appear that Google worked hard and long to get their message to the DOI IT officials, but those officials had already (and privately) decided to get the Microsoft product. All the relationship building would not appear to have had any effect on the already determined DOI selection. This is the kind of situation where marketing efforts just won’t move the procuring agency and the only remedy is the bid protest.
Federal IT personnel have on more than one occasion attempted to avoid the statutory requirements for “full and open competition” by pre-selecting their privately determined preferred product or supplier. See the decision in Savantage Financial Services [http://tinyurl.com/24vj2rg] for a similar situation at DHS. While it is not per se illegal to specify a particular product, specifying that product must be done on a logical and factually supported basis. These days that is practically impossible to do for software systems. As I understand the technology, virtually any software product can be duplicated and few are proprietary in the sense of being protected by patents. The problem appears to be that those picking their favorite supplier are unwilling to trust the marketplace to get them what they want.
procureinsights
November 3, 2010
Thank you for the thoughtful response Jon. Now here’s a question: is the rule by which Google’s suit will likely prevail a good rule given the relationship factor and, ensuring best value acquisitions re what if after considerable research the decision to go with MS is based on solid research? Is forcing the issue a good thing. If yes or no, please elaborate.