Wednesday, December 17, 2008
The absurdities of government contracting
The game of chicken being played with the communications network for our Department of National Defense (DND) is a demonstration of what is wrong with government contracting.
Read the file on the CRTC website and you would scratch your head with wonder [start from the bottom and work your way up].
Basically, here is what happened: Bell had been providing DND with its national communications services. Two years ago, TELUS won the replacement network RFP, which required that the transition be completed in 12 months. It missed.
For the past year and a half, DND has used up the 18 months of month-to-month of transitional renewals that were allowed under the customer specific arrangement (CSA) that governed their old network. That CSA expired on Monday, and the but is continuing until the CRTC renders its decision. There was no provision to extend the old arrangement beyond these 18 monthly renewals.
TELUS is still not able to finish the transition of most of the network for about 6 more months and parts may not be ready for up to two years.
Bell has said that they no longer offer that arrangement; the service has been replaced by a new tariffed service, but that requires a 5 year commitment - just sign here please. Sorry, we don't offer that any other way.
If this was a normal private sector customer, the old carrier would be helpful, sometimes to the point of bending over backwards to assist the new carrier.
Why? Because in the private sector, customers have long memories. RFPs don't have to be fair; there can be all sorts of subjective points awarded for intangible, qualitative factors like service history. Not so for the government. Public Works, the contracting arm of our government, won't be able to consider any of these antics when it comes time to award its next piece of business.
With government, contracts are awarded based on quantitative, unemotional points scoring. It is a clean slate for each procurement. Do you think the taxpayer is better off this way? Still, since there is no downside for Bell in future contract opportunities, they are behaving exactly the way their shareholders should be proud of.
Hopefully the government lawyers are learning how to deal with end-of-contract transition clauses a little better.
Technorati Tags:
DND, PWGSC, Bell, TELUS
Read the file on the CRTC website and you would scratch your head with wonder [start from the bottom and work your way up].
Basically, here is what happened: Bell had been providing DND with its national communications services. Two years ago, TELUS won the replacement network RFP, which required that the transition be completed in 12 months. It missed.
For the past year and a half, DND has used up the 18 months of month-to-month of transitional renewals that were allowed under the customer specific arrangement (CSA) that governed their old network. That CSA expired on Monday, and the but is continuing until the CRTC renders its decision. There was no provision to extend the old arrangement beyond these 18 monthly renewals.
TELUS is still not able to finish the transition of most of the network for about 6 more months and parts may not be ready for up to two years.
Bell has said that they no longer offer that arrangement; the service has been replaced by a new tariffed service, but that requires a 5 year commitment - just sign here please. Sorry, we don't offer that any other way.
If this was a normal private sector customer, the old carrier would be helpful, sometimes to the point of bending over backwards to assist the new carrier.
Why? Because in the private sector, customers have long memories. RFPs don't have to be fair; there can be all sorts of subjective points awarded for intangible, qualitative factors like service history. Not so for the government. Public Works, the contracting arm of our government, won't be able to consider any of these antics when it comes time to award its next piece of business.
With government, contracts are awarded based on quantitative, unemotional points scoring. It is a clean slate for each procurement. Do you think the taxpayer is better off this way? Still, since there is no downside for Bell in future contract opportunities, they are behaving exactly the way their shareholders should be proud of.
Hopefully the government lawyers are learning how to deal with end-of-contract transition clauses a little better.
Technorati Tags:
DND, PWGSC, Bell, TELUS
Posted by Mark Goldberg @ 12/17/2008 06:51:00 AM 
Comments:
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Why should BCE prop up an incompetent competitor? Even DND wants to spike Telus and go back to BCE. Telus is likely to miss their contracted deadline by *one whole year* - and so they are crying to the CRTC that it's BCE's fault? Wah-wah-wah....gimme a break!! The dummies at PWGSC who signed this contract with a 10% low-baller should have their fingernails pulled-out by the taxpayers.....
Posted by 
: 6:37 PM, December 18, 2008
: 6:37 PM, December 18, 2008
In future instances of RFPs, governments can and should simulate memory in their RFP scoring mechanisms. e.g., by weighting 25% of the supplier score to responses answering questions related to how suppliers supported migrations off their networks. They can also ask prospective suppliers on their plans to support migrations off their networks in the future. Asking for this sort of flexibility from a supplier could impact the current cost of delivering the current or proposed service, but it would definitely help keep future cost down by enabling governments to actually have a choice in moving to a different supplier.
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Posted by : 12:35 PM, December 19, 2008
: 12:35 PM, December 19, 2008 << Home
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