Are multiyear contracts really a super-saver in acquisition?
Bill Greenwalt and Mackenzie Eaglen advocate for greater use of multiyear contracting to help solve supply chain troubles and pricing in an inflationary environment. Here’s […]
pricing
What are some of the fears contracting officers have that prevent speed?
As we wrap up out highlights from the Government Contracting Pricing Summit, here’s a couple good parts from an address made by David Cade, Vice […]
DoD provides some relief for small/nontraditional contractors
Effective immediately, the list of exceptions to certified cost or pricing data requirements at Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 15.403-1(b) is expanded to include contracts, subcontracts, […]
Podcast: Mach 5 aircraft and deep tech contracting with Hermeus CEO AJ Piplica
AJ Piplica joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss transportation at hypersonic speeds. He is the founder and CEO of Hermeus, which is […]
DoD experiments with bots to automate price reasonableness
As part of a pilot project now underway, the service [US Army] is experimenting with bots that can scrape through the bills of materials (BOMs) […]
Podcast: What’s the price of an AI/ML product?
As firms are finding out, the unit economics of AI/ML is not exactly like software. It requires more manual manipulation of data than one might […]
One key to software success in DoD: Consumption-Based Solutions
Here’s a lengthy but important discussion on Consumption Based Solutions from Nick Tsiopanas at a nice NPS ARP webinar, Innovations in Software Acquisition at the […]
The tyranny of lowest price
“If they [the General Services Administration] want to be responsive to customer agency needs and be a bridge between the commercial market and the customer […]
DoD’s fixation on cost stifles its ability to innovate
Accounting scholars Baruch Lev and Feng Gu found that the value of tangible assets and earnings explained more than 80% of companies’ value when entering […]
Why cost accounting does not guarantee efficiency
But accurate accounts will not guarantee efficiency. Even if — as is unlikely to be the case [Sourwine 1993; 1994]– the service supplier’s financial and […]
Defense companies lose sight of product due to rules and regulations
Working with government requires understanding the ins and outs of the literally thousands of pages of regulations: intellectual property rules that are unique to government, […]
What Palantir and Lockheed’s financials say about the GovCon business
Here’s a good piece from Simply Statistics on Palantir: At first glance it seems their doing pretty well. Their gross profit (Revenue – Cost of […]