Commercial methodologies for acquiring consulting services: can Department of Defense contracting activities follow suit?
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Authors
Clarke, Will A.
Subjects
Advisors
Tudor, Ron B.
Yoder, E. Cory
Date of Issue
2001-12
Date
December 2001
Publisher
Language
Abstract
Spending on services has increased over the past decade while spending on goods has decreased. The methods used for procuring Consulting Services (CS), which comprises the largest spending subcategory of services, has come under scrutiny as a consequence of the results uncovered from an Inspector General Audit conducted in March 2000. The objective of this thesis is to ascertain the best pre-award commercial practices for acquiring CS and draw conclusions and make recommendations for employing these proven methods in future Department of Defense (DoD) procurements. To gather these data, the researcher conducted on-site interviews with the executives and senior level acquisition professionals of eight highly successful firms, all of which are recognized leaders in their competitive niches in the commercial marketplace. Private firms effectively and efficiently obtain top-level CS because of their flexible and innovative acquisition methods. DoD can adopt private industrygass sound business practices if the statutory barrier mandating full and open competition and the cultural barriers for conducting thorough market research are mitigated or eliminated.
Type
Thesis
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Management
Organization
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
Funder
Format
xii, 126 p. ; 28 cm.
Citation
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.