Monday, October 6, 2008
Government Services Insider, entering its fifth year, provides insight and commentary on the companies that provide professional services, including IT, to the federal government. We're interested in the supplier-side—best practices, strategies that work, lessons learned, and how to thrive in the government space. Last but not least, we're independent
The Insider Promise:
Every subscriber will find in each issue at least one strategy or
action-ready idea with a value many times the cost of a
subscription.
Government Services Insider, an independent source of insight and commentary on the professional and IT services firms that serve the federal government, entered its fifth year of publication in January 2008. The Insider focuses on successful business strategies, lessons learned, best practices, and critical inputs to thinking through improvements in business management and development.
Currently, the Insider is published monthly in Washington. In a few weeks, the Insider will transition into a Web-based content management information service, allowing dynamic distribution of items, more content, and the creation of tailored, content-specific audience segments, expanding the subscriber base. Contact: www.gsinsider.com or editor@gsinsider.com or 202.237.0765 for subscriptions or other information.
Posted on September 1
Note on distribution: In the typical month, subscribers can access the pdf of the complete new issue on this site in the first week of the month by using their user IDs and passwords to enter the Subscribers Only section of this Web site. Hardcopies typically reach subscribers one week later.
Prof. Paul Light, best known in these parts for measuring the size of government, has come up with a stunning analysis of just how dysfunctional the government is. He's polite and well documented. He also lays little blame on contractors, but believes that contractors and their clients go to great lengths to keep the size of the contractor and grantee workforce "hidden." In a book well worth reading, we focused on the small part devoted to contracting and contractors.
SAIC is accused in whistleblower lawsuits every couple of years, or so, of cheating the government. The company typically settles and pays a few $ million, without admitting any wrongdoing or going through the travail of a trial. Here's a case that went to trial, and exposed a far weightier issue than alleged false claims for many firms in the industry.
In his Policy & Regs column, Alan Chvotkin serves up the import of the recent GAO review of DCAA's management and suggests ways for contractors to cope while the agency attempts to address strong criticism.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence served up authoritative numbers and estimates in the last week of August.
We continue to hear some otherwise savvy industry executives lull themselves into thinking that it's too costly and too much trouble for government to terminate contracts for convenience. GAO took an analytical look and found the conventional wisdom is wrong, but how this applies to the services business is uncertain.
(1) CIA drops MVM Inc. security support for overseas personnel; (2) the Railhead program to fix counterterrorism databases seems to be folding its contractor support.