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?
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Posted on October 7
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It's already happening to some companies in the business. Here are five ways the financial crisis is making things tougher for federal contractors. Even with the passage of the bailout legislation on October 3, these effects will continue to unfold. And the impacts will persist.
By our count, Treasury has to have its bailout program up no later than November 18. We take a look at the requirements and the extent to which the usual suspects in the government services industry can fit them. For a change, conflicts of interest won't cloud most of the usual suspects, but the expertise requirements are more than a stretch for them. Familiar government services contractors won't get a piece of this action, for the most part, but financial institutions with conflicts that need to be rigorously mitigated will run the show.
Bad contract requirements cannot only ruin your contract, but also your reputation, according to Alan Chvotkin. Depressingly, but with sincerity and expertise, he cites no real progress in strengthening the clarity and quality of requirements over the years. That's bad, because missing or defective requirements are the largest source of contract problems; mere contracting "process" issues pale in significance. Chvotkin suggests how to cope.
We view organizational conflicts of interest as an irreversible challenge for government services firms. Government scrutiny and restrictions will only increase. At the same time, the permutations of OCI seem to be limitless, and worse yet, still shaped in part by the eye and mind of the beholder, not just the rules. We present five ways to stay out of trouble.
Without having to do a cost comparison, IRS acted to terminate a $103 million contract with IAP Worldwide Services and bring tax file management work in house. The company says it does not know why it was terminated, but staffing the contract has been a visible problem since its inception. The circumstances may make it impossible to ever know the relative costs of government performance, but the politics are clear. Contractors should take this as a sign that the government is moving to make contractors more accountable.
The FY2009 bill that went to the White House on September 27 contained a number of regulations that have been brandished by Congress for almost two years. One mandates a governmentwide rule that three actual offers be obtained for almost any task-order solicited under GSA schedules, GWACS and other kinds of contracts. Another calls for implementation of the "contractor misconduct" database that industry has fought for some plausible reasons.
US Investigations Services, Inc. is one of the dominant players in background investigations and other security work. It knows a criminal investigation when it sees one. Then why has it agreed to do such work for the State Department, which is struggling to investigate actions by its security contractors in Iraq in the wake of the alleged Blackwater massacre of civilians in September 2007?