MILLER ON PROCUREMENT.

***PRIMES***

The government needs primes badly. Primes provide vital technical skills, personnel and even procurement now that we have reformed the FAR and downsized the procurement staff by hundreds of thousands.

But primes present an entirely different problem to possible subs. They tend to be arrogant. I once had a representative from a major prime tell me that the prime knew everything there was to know about storage systems. Turns out he was wrong and we finally squeezed them into saving $5 million for the DOD with a system they had no clue about.

Government employees, for the most part, have no clue regarding the money that primes lose for the Feds and the games they play.

But help is often available. Suppose the prime refuses to talk to you at all. You have a number of pressure points. They include the administrative CO, the higher procurement authority, a possible protest to the prime with a copy to the agency, etc.

Energy has one of the best prime review systems. Anyone can go to the Assistant Secretary for Administration and complain about not be treated fairly, professionally, etc., by the prime. In every agency some official is responsible for prime oversight.

Whether the problem is stupidity, arrogance, ignorance, bribery, illegal stock ownership (the Col. Owns shares of one of the suppliers) etc., a way often exists to deal with the issue and often get results.

As for the claims of the typical prime claiming technical omnipotence they should be taken with much salt. When is the last time you saw a prime with a successful IT hardware or software product? When was the last time Microsoft or Oracle hired the prime to solve a technical problem?

The number one skill that a prime possesses is winning bids and getting contracts. And this comes from experience. We have seen a prime spend $10 million and lose an RFP. Such a prospect is beyond most IT firms.

***OUTSELL***

When you compete in a particular space and that space is dominated by one vendor such as EMC, Oracle, IBM etc., vendors who are holding the short stick seldom grab the one life vest which will save them.

Instead managers seek to increase sales by outselling the dominant vendor. This is practically impossible to do and probably won't ever happen until another technology wave results in displacement of the dominate vendor as happened with Xerox, Wang and Digital.

Rather than trying to outsell your need to employ the FAR, take a few agencies to court, win a few protests, protests a few schedule buys etc. All of this is relatively easy, not too expensive and fun to watch people squirm when not obeying the rules.

We can even send you a list of cases to deploy if the problem is illegal schedule buying as it most certainly probably is. Do you really think Dell did billions in GSA business and the agencies obeyed the rules? Get real.

If you are happy with your $13 million in GSA business and glad to see the success of Dell, go in peace. If not take action.

***COURAGE***

I did not see much among either vendors or federal employees when procurement reform was being ginned up. Most government employees are always afraid to speak out and many vendors are as well.

Just so I can better understand our readership I believe that reform is bad for 80% of vendors. Do you agree? What about it do you especially like or dislike? How was it helped and/or hurt your firm?

Here is a case from my files that may give some new respect for courage. A client, the VP of a large systems firm, got a call at home one evening. An unknown voice wanted to know if he wanted to buy a copy of the actual bid of a competitor on a large Army RFP worth many millions.

If you get that call tonight what will you do. I advised him he had one choice, call the FBI. He did and they caught the guy at a motel. Turns out it was the real bid offered for sale by a disgruntled employee.

Look at what happens if you don't call the FBI and someone else does. The FBI assumes you bought the bid. If you don't call you run the risk it is a federal employee selling your bid also.

After they caught the culprit the FBI and the VP got to visit the Army and play hero. His firm won the bid. All the other bidders had to withstand the third degree as to whether or not they bought the bid.

Why does the VP of one of the largest firms need to solicit courage from a picayune consultant such as me?