Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Introducing the Insider
The Industry Defined
HUBZones: Anyone Can Play
Beyond Reproach: The Incumbent's Bind
Breaking Wave: Human Resources BPO
Cooperative Personnel Services: Differentiating Not a Problem
Adventures in Marketing
Policy & Regs: Can We Satisfy the Appetite for Cleared Personnel?
Right-click to download (112 KB, Acrobat PDF).
Posted on October 2
Note on distribution: In the typical month, subscribers can access the complete 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.
To become a subscriber giving you access to the entire 6,000-word October 2007 issue and all back issues to January 2004, please activate the Subscribe button above to subscribe online.
Industry executives sometimes lose it when the topic of False Claims Act suits and settlements comes up. They tend to feel vulnerable to them no matter how well they manage. Whistleblowers don't tend to provide useful defensive stratagems, but people who commit frauds might. As we don't know such people, we chose the next best person, Patrick Burns, an official of Taxpayers Against Fraud, a nonprofit watchdog group that, among other things, connects whistleblowers with attorneys. Using healthcare frauds as a starting point, we asked him to consider how fertile the ground is for frauds concerning information technology acquisitions.
While there are only a handful of LSI-managed programs, the conclusion seems inescapable that this form of management doesn't work for the government. We take a look at the track record to date and suggest what the demise of contracts where contractors also take some government-like responsibilities is going to mean for the industry and for customers.
There's no need to recap the various messes in Iraq contracting because you are almost certainly well aware of them. Instead, Alan Chvotkin suggests how to evaluate overseas work from business risk, profitability, and regulatory standpoints. There are some good reasons why this work is not for everyone, and even experienced hands get burned.