HOW TO CONVINCE THE ARMY TO GET WHAT YOU NEED
development efforts rather than commercial alternatives. Effectively, the results of the Army’s market research made it impossible for another source to offer a commercial item to satisfy its requirements.
2. ADEQUACY Information Ventures
(B-294267)
Issue: Was the agency’s limited search of the potential small business market reasonable?
Despite interest by six small businesses resulting from a pre-solicitation notice, a request for proposals was not set aside for small businesses, but instead was issued unre- stricted as the result of market research.
From that, the
contracting officer determined that
there was no reason-
able expectation that two or more small businesses could perform the work.
The record indicates that the contracting officer failed to take into account known infor- mation indicating the interest of capable small businesses in this procurement.
Lesson learned: In a ruling issued in October 2004, GAO held that the contracting offi- cer did not reasonably consider a small business set-aside and failed to take into account information from the market research report that indicated interest from small businesses.
Inc.
Te requiring activity (the organization with the need) should craft the capabil- ity information (the description of what is needed) to be submitted by industry; iden- tify form, fit and function descriptions; review industry capability statements; revise government performance work statements or statements of work based on industry responses; and determine applicability of commercial items and modifications to commercial items to meet the agency’s need.
The contracting officer should issue pre-solicitation notices—requests
for
information and sources sought, and draft requests for proposals—to promote early exchanges of information; host pre-solicitation conferences to involve potential offerors early in the acquisition process; and conduct other means of stim- ulating industry involvement. All of the tools just mentioned are pre-solicitation notices, and there is no particular order in which they should be done—market research is conducted appropriate to the circumstances, so any number of the notice techniques may be used.
Experts, such as industrial specialists and intellectual property attorneys, should be part of the acquisition team as required.
In market research, we want to gather all of the pertinent information on whatever the capability is, whether it’s simple trash collection services or biological dyses- thesia dysfunction studies or helicopters. Te intent is to identify the availability and capability of commercial products or services that meet the Army’s require- ments and mission needs.
CONCLUSION Te role of market research is to help the government identify companies that have the potential to meet the govern- ment’s requirements. Tat research is
46 Army AL&T Magazine Winter 2020
flawed when we neglect to fully inves- tigate possible commercially available alternatives to meet Army requirements. Te lack of knowledge of the requirement, the commercial market and industry’s capability impact decisions related to full and open competition.
When we think we know what we want, or may have formed a predetermined conclu- sion on the product, service or vendor, we risk not obtaining the full value of exper- tise and innovation that may be available in the commercial market—as well as the risk of being thought of as a lunatic.
For more information on market research and its impact on competition in contracting, go to
https://spcs3.kc.army.mil/asaalt/ procurement/SitePages/NewTraining. aspx. A common access card is needed to access the site.
DENNIS P. LONGO is advocate for competition, task and delivery order ombudsman, and senior procurement analyst at the U.S. Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.
A member III of the Army
Acquisition Corps, he holds a bachelor’s degree from University of Baltimore, and is Level
certified in contracting and
in acquisition. His assignments include acquisition
specialist at the Program
Manager for Chemical Demilitarization within the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Activity and procurement analyst at the U.S. Army Legal Services Agency. He served in the Army from 1971 to 1973 at the Southern European Task Force, Italy, and was deployed to Iraq as a civilian in 2003. He authored the Defense Acquisition University Continuous Learning DOD Purchase Card Tutorial in 2003, and has been teaching courses on competition in contracting since 2004.
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